The Red-Hot Knicks, OKC’s Beat-Up-Wemby Ploy, a Mini-Mailbag, and ‘Survivor 50’ | With Rob Mahoney, Jason Concepcion, and Mallory Rubin

The conference finals finally is here.

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play your game. Twenty-one-one-plus-like states are 18-plus D.C. Contact your Wyoming Game Problem Call 1-800-GameBark call 888-789-777 or visit the ccpg.org/chat Connecticut. What's up, it's podcast live here on Netflix, Rob Bahoney, one of the stars of euphoria,

season three. I think you've done a great job.

Coming up on this podcast, Rob and I are going to talk about Nick's Caves, the Nick's

are up to nothing. We're going to talk some O.K.C. San Antonio, we're going to do a mail bag, and then a little bit later on. Jason Concepts, you know, in a Mallory Ribbon, together talking Survivor 53 hours, last then on CBS.

So, that is the plan for tonight. All right. Playoff wins for the next, I'm going to start here. We had some injuries in the game last night, San Antonio, okay, C. I don't know, Harper, it seems like might be back for a game three, but definitely not 100% and then J.W.

who knows, D.R. and Fox, high ankle sprain, the next up one, nine-street playoff games.

“Is it fair to start thinking about the title of your next fan at this point?”

God. I mean, now you're just daring them, right? Dude. Yeah. You don't want to get ahead of it.

Let's look at it this way. Josh Hart came out of game one with a ton of humility, and it was like, I understand. This isn't about me. I'm going to do whatever the team needs me to do. I'm going to accept my role in the series.

And the basketball gods rewarded him with one of their unique performances of his life. So if you're a next fan, I would say, don't do anything that's going to get you in trouble. Be responsible out there, including not looking too far ahead, even though it is very tempting right now. Take it one game at a time.

But I will say this. I thought the winner of Spurs and thunder was going to be the winner of the 2026 title. The injuries are definitely going to even things out, plus the fact that the nicks have been on a heater. I was really impressed how they attacked Cleveland, because at halftime, the calves had

and shot that well, and yet it was a close game, which I always, I thought the next

were going to win tonight, but it was a close game in halftime, and it felt like the calves hadn't got going, and I was like, this is interesting. Heart took 12 shots in the first half. That's a bad sign. You don't want him to take the most shots of your team.

Are the calves going to make a run, and then all of a sudden the nicks went the other way. They went on an 18-nothing run in the third quarter. Heart did, and uptake in the most shots, right? Yeah. A ton of shots.

I mean, he took 21. He took the most shots by any nick, not named Jalen Brunson at any point in these playoffs. So it was, oh my god. It was dared to do it, and I have to say, is do you think there's anything more satisfying

“for a role player than this than being dared to be a score when you don't have that reputation?”

You deliver in this huge way in this huge moment, and you get this satisfaction of winning, you get the satisfaction of scoring a bunch of points, you get the satisfaction of proving people wrong, and you get really the icing on the cake, just getting to rub it in constantly after every three after every like drive, it just got to be a pretty sweet night for Josh Hart.

It's like a double middle finger, just like, we're not going to give me this again. I'm making him. Josh Hart, I don't know if every playoff team has a guy like this, but Josh Hart is definitely the, if he's playing well, the nicks seem pretty unstoppable guy, right? We've seen this in playoff series.

We saw this in some regular season games when he's going, they just suddenly look pretty, pretty formidable. I thought Brunson was outstanding to that. Yeah. You know, in a way like a better game than he played in game one, even though he went

on that heroic heater down this stretch, I thought the game management tonight, figuring out immediately what they were doing, he went back to his old Villanova running the show kind of ways. They just dissected that trap at the top, there were playing four and three, I liked everything they did.

I got to say, I got to hand it to Mike Brown about the nicks were like really well coached in that game. I was impressed. Really well coached for the last several weeks. I mean, they've just looked like a team that has answers to everything that knows exactly

feel like Jill and Brunson was under wraps.

He was seeing a lot of pressure and you're right, you're so surgical about it. And I think a huge part of why the nicks are here now and they feel as dominant as you mentioned up top is they've reached this point of stability in their offense, where no one feels like a specialist. Like Josh Hart can have a game like this that's explosive, but Mike Hill Bridges was doing

everything offensively and it was awesome, cat is driving really responsibly and hitting threes and posting up OG and an OB can overwhelm like any defender in front of him at almost any time right now. They're just in such a comfortable place because all of these guys get to be dynamic. And that's a credit to Mike Brown, but it's also a credit to Jill and Brunson for understanding

how to tap in to everybody. And Bridges got going really since midway through that alana series, where that trade seemed like a disaster. And then it didn't seem like that bad of a disaster now, it's like, hey, if they don't make that trade, maybe they're going to find us.

But I really like how he's playing.

I thought he was really good in game one and in general, like, you know, you've guys sacrificing all over the place on a team like this, but as you get closer, this is 10 playoff ones from them now, as you get closer to the ring, suddenly it doesn't matter.

“And that's why somebody like Josh Hart, who's a little embarrassing for him game one,”

but he's ready to go game two, there were a couple other things that happened though. Cav's bench was was awful. Yeah. And I don't, so at home, whatever you're going to get, whatever you're going to get from your bench guys.

But one of the things I liked about, so Merrill was one for eight, Bruce was one for seven, Tyson was one for four, Dean weight one for three. We're starting was one for three. Yeah. So combining that's 12% for those guys.

Yeah. And Merrill, I thought it was interesting, they were like, let her notice it. Like, little was talking about it there in the game, like that he, that he was getting a little hang doggy. And I was thinking about, you know, the half bang from the game one with Merrill.

Yeah. But whatever that was, and that not going in, it felt like he carried that into this game. I mean, he's kind of, I really thought he was becoming like a real playoff guy. Yeah. And like, a guy that when he was open, you just felt like it was going in.

And now that's felt like that's going sideways. They had to rely on Schroeder, which has been full-schooled for what 13 teams of the league at this point. Including this one. And he hasn't been good for six straight games now, like, just really has not made

an impact. And they have to play him. And he needs it to handle the ball, because otherwise, down to the Mitchell and James Harder is just going to get run into the ground. So he has to be out there, unfortunately.

Yeah. The things I didn't like about this Cavs team when you just talked about could this scene when three straight rounds. Can they guard people like Maxi and people like, like, uh, Brunson, who they guard those, kind of the smart scoring guard.

Yeah. It gave up a lot of threes, usually they're open, but just kind of who they are, defensively, they're a middle-of-the-road defense team. You saw that today, too. And it just feels like the nicks are starting to look like a bad matchup for them.

The next were asleep for the first three quarters, a game one. But since that had been a control of the series, and I don't know what the moves are here for the Cavs, which I, of course, said after game one of OkC San Antonio, and then the move was just to go big and bully and grab and pull Wemby's arms for quarters. Shockingly effective if you can get away with that.

Yeah. I'm not sure what the moves are here. Like, even looking at the minutes, Alan played 28, um, and he was a minus 20, uh, mobile played 36. They were trying that.

One point they had three guards with Tyson and mobile, and they were just trying

all kinds of different things, and they, they can never really land on anything.

So what's, what's the answer? What do they do? The big question is, do you want to continue to guard Josh Hart like this?

“Like, do you want to try this again, or do you have to go completely back to the drawing”

board in terms of the coverage? I ask this, and it may seem crazy after the game that Josh Hart just had, but it's like, if they aren't guarding him this way, they don't have a lot of defensive alternatives. Like, it's, it's really hard to contain jail and brunch, and it's really hard to keep James Harden from getting switched into that matchup as we saw in game one.

When you don't have like a Jared Allen, just kind of shadowing everything on the backline. So they have to make a lot of hard defensive decisions. Offensively, I just think if you're, if your role players are shooting like this, you're gonna lose. Like, there's really not a lot you can do to adjust to that to the point that, I mean,

one of my favorite looks for the calves is Harden and Allen, and they put three shooters around them. Usually it's Dean Wade, Max Struce, Sam Merrill, all three of those guys. It's often like it's clean and easy, as Cleveland's offense will ever look. They will rack up points for a little burst of time when that group is out on the floor,

but if three of those guys can't shoot your cooked, it kind of is that simple. Those guys are gonna have to play better, they're gonna have to make some kind of adjustment defensively. I actually would not bail on leaving Josh Hart just yet because of that desperation, because

“of the lack of alternatives, I think they should make him prove it one more time before they”

really go back to the drawing board on it. But look, they were gonna be behind the ball in this series. The next half played like a juggernaut, the calves have been great survivors, but it's not

So they, the heart decision, yeah. Acconsent after the game, and in the interviews yesterday was talking about, he was doing some 1% thing, how hard the brunch and shots were, which I agreed with, I said that after the game. I thought the shot making was extraordinary by Brunson.

There was only maybe two of those times where I really felt like hard and got cooked, but for the most part, those were really hard shots. But also guess what? He's dealing with Brunson. He hits a lot.

Yeah, but I guess my question is, you seem like you're overreacting to the last date minutes of the game, and underreacting to the first 40. Yeah.

And then they swing completely the other way, and they're like, here's what we're going

to really, really hard open. Once he starts making a couple, I'm getting rid of that strategy, especially at home. I could see doing that in Cleveland, but it just felt like the more comfortable he was getting. You know, we see this sometimes with the Hacker Shack, well, they'll start doing the Hacker

Shack, and then the guy will start making them. Yeah. And he almost gets in a groove with shooting them, and then it's like, all right, stop. He's in a groove now.

“I always thought with Hacker Shack, you should be doing it sporadically.”

Like you do it, and you don't do it. You do it. Like you kind of keep the guy in the heels. I would have tried that with almost treated this like a football game with heart, where sometimes we leave my own, sometimes we don't.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to mix it up.

I don't. I didn't love the strategy. I have not loved the coaching in this series. And then there's the Mitchell piece, too, about, is he heard? He's not hurt, because in the first quarter, they're showing us replays of him, and it looks

like he's dragging his leg, then he's doing a Euro step, like, what's coming on with it? I think he's definitely heard. I mean, even injured players can have athletic moments, and we've seen some of those from Donovan Mitchell. But you'll see him just like absolutely chugging, working super hard, just to run

up the floor on some of these possessions. So I don't know what it is that's ailing him, but he's not his explosive vest all the time. Like, he's a great shooter, and he's so strong, and his footwork is so good. He's just going to, like, buy force of will, be an impact player in a lot of these games,

but I don't think he has it there all the time. And James Harden clearly doesn't have it there all the time.

And this is maybe the critical flaw in the cast's design is with both of those guys

playing that way, so much of what Jared Allen and Evan Mobile do offensively, is drafting off of the attention that Donovan Mitchell and James Harden get.

“And that's why you saw, like, Evan Mobile, we put up 10 points in the first quarter”

to this game, like it was nothing. Super easy. Yeah, all like with that, like playing within the flow of the game, four points to the rest of the way, because the next change, their defense a little bit overreacted, a little less made these guys earn it.

Also got out to Evan Mobile on some of his shots, too, to take away the Josh Hart's style open looks they were giving him. Jared Allen is kind of a similar thing. Like, as soon as you contain the dribble penetration, those are not too big, so we're going to force it.

We're going to put up a bunch of points unless they're working the offensive glass. And that evaporated for the, for the, for the calves over the course of this game, too. Yeah. Now in a moment, half time or 23 and 10. Yep.

Um, that did not continue. And then harden had 12 points at half time with about halfway through the fourth quarter. He's still at 12 points. Yeah.

And it was like, what, oh, you see, you see, out there, and then he had a couple, couple late kind of after the game was decided, I don't know Rob, I don't know what the move is. The calves have been better at home for the most part than if they did have that game six stinker, I think the variable that's going to be different this time, you're going to have an expanse there.

I don't know what the number is, but it's going to be more than you think. And the next fan's travel, they seem to be everywhere. Cleveland is just close enough to like four different cities. Uh, there'll be secondary market stuff. And I have a feeling there's going to be, I don't know, maybe 15, 20% there.

So the energy is going to be a little different than maybe a Cleveland Detroit game. Um, and then we'll see, like, is Mitchell healthy, are they going to do the same thing with Bruce again, is this just the next time, like, it's really starting to feel that way, um, with the, the, the, the, the, the Brunsett in the way, you know, kind of flipping the, the gravity of that Halbert game a year ago, yeah, kind of kind of resetting that.

And then you see the celebrities, what a great ticket. I didn't realize, we talked about this when I did the pod two days ago. And I thought the crowd seemed pretty great, but they also mute the microphones. And there was a lot of good fan video that came out from the, from the, from the 24 hours after the game or some of the different shots and like, that crowd was like, delirious.

And everybody who was there that I knew was like, that's the best crowd I've been in a while. And it just feels like that's, it's now you're down to, oh, yeah.

“You have to win game five, you have to either sweep the Cleveland games and win game”

five in New York or you have to win five and seven in New York. And I just don't see it with this caption. It was going to be difficult no matter what, but I, I wonder, you raised the point of the traveling fan base, is this one of the new inefficiencies in the league, having the Eastern Conference like regional geography on your side where you can travel,

having a fan base with disposable income, who's going to make the trip to Cleveland.

Can we get like it, does Timothy Shalom, they have like a super pack where he's just like funding buses, you know, let's, let's get people over there. I just think there's an opportunity here for any celebrity with some money to spend to really make an actual impact on the atmosphere of these games.

We've started seeing this in baseball in the last 15 years first.

And now it seems like it's trickled in a basketball. Certainly the case with the Celtics, like they would play in these random cities like Phoenix, New Orleans, and it would be like 5,000 Celtic fans there. You could see it with the next definitely, see what definitely with the Lakers, the team's that the generational fans seem like they can take 15 to 25% of the stadium for big end.

So we'll see, or 80% of its Philly apparently, it's 80% of that is bad. So we have the next or down minus 820 on Fandwell, the next sweep is plus 250. It's not going to be a sweep.

“The casers, I think they're too good for that.”

You sure? I mean, I'm sure, I feel sure that they're supporting us in three weeks. They haven't. But here's the thing. It's like in a game like this, you see the dominoes falling, where Josh Hart shooting

the way he does opens things up for Jalen Brunson, who then is attacking more open coverage sprang out to everybody, everything is building on itself. And on the other side, Donovan Mitchell, who isn't moving super well, is now seeing multiple defenders in front of him every possession, because no one around him can hit a shot. The bigs are like trying to do the dirty work, but ultimately on attracting a lot of attention.

If either of those things flips, right, Josh Hart makes a few fewer shots. If any Cavs role players start hitting shots, then you see the dynamic and the balance of this game shift pretty dramatically with it. I just think we're going to get one game where that's the case, whether it's the classic role players should better at home type of influence, whether it is like a one game James

Harden explosion, whatever that looks like. The Cavs are a team that when their backs are against the wall have responded with some of the most impressive efforts of these playoffs. So I don't want to write them off and say we're headed quite down that darker road.

“Cavs and Fox are next and five is plus 190 and that would be my bet, because I think”

you're right. I think there's going to be a game where the role guys make shots. Yeah. Even tonight, I felt especially in the first half, I thought the Cavs were good and good shots.

I like the shots they're good, and they just weren't going in. They're getting open threes, they're getting good Mitchell shots, they're moldly was doing whatever he wanted in that first six minutes. And I would like to have they played the results just weren't really there. No, unfortunately.

Mike Brown for Tibs looking pretty good, huge upgrade, huge adjustment. The Bridges trade, look at all right, towns trade, solid back to win. I mean, the sham at side, I mean pretty good, like there's been some good moves there. I'm not exaggerating when I say the landry sham at signing might be like a monumental move in retrospect for the next, like his ability to give them important minutes.

To be a floor spacer in game one, they go on that run because they have enough shooters to take Josh heart off the floor in game two, Josh heart becomes one of those shooters. So it's not a problem, but the next bench has been awesome and it's been awesome because it's been cultivated over the course of the entire year in a way that for all being honest,

about it, Tibs would never.

You're right. There should be a basketball reference or a cleat in the glass stat.

“I do I think it's going in and sham it, I think I was probably like 25% with him for most”

of his career. Now I think it's going in. Bulls is kind of like, who else is disproportionately high on the belief versus the actual percentage? Well, in the in the sparse thunder series, I just think every Vesalesh is going in now and he might

be 100. I don't know why, I just feel like and sham pennies to another one, even though he was a good and game two, I always feel like his shots are going in too, but Vesalesh right now is in a group where it just doesn't seem like it matters if he's falling left, falling right, falling backwards, it's going in.

Catches it in the air, whatever, like yeah, he makes just like preposterous shots. I think those those two guys are great, Devon Booker's another one of those guys for

me who I'm always like, I feel like it's going in and then you look at the percentages

and it's like mid mid to at least from three, it's like a beautiful jumper, but it doesn't always hit. We have pictured is the best Celtic for this, every time he misses it, is that not just you? No, I just can't, I'm always thinking it's going in with him, like I still haven't gotten over his corner three in the game center and so I think I still can't move that didn't

go in. All right, so we, let's move to a sparse thunder because that's probably a more interesting series for a lot of reason, but I talk about the physicality, the actual. So there's two kinds of physicality, right? I like the first kind of playoff physicality, let the big boys, big, big boys.

The stuff that was happening in this game and you could say from the other side if you're okay, see if they're doing it to shade two, their opponent, grab it on me. They, they viewed like almost a new way to defend Wendy yesterday and I'm going to be really interested to see how the league reacts to it over the course of this series. This is just new territory for us.

If you're just pulling his arms and pulling them off balance all the time, if you're pushing his shoulders down when he's jumping, which is all stuff, heart and stomach was doing. I felt like when we got fouled 20, I don't have a dog in this race, I'm a Celtic fan. I don't really care who wins the series, but I also really enjoy watching Wemby and yesterday was, I don't mind if he's getting knocked around.

I thought Minnesota did a great job doing it. I thought the difference yesterday was like the pulling, the grabbing, the pushing, just stuff that just shouldn't be legal and if you're going to be allowed to do all that stuff, okay, so he's going to win the series in five. So how did they react to Game 3?

“So I think this conversation depends on who you're pointing the finger at from the Thunder”

perspective. I think as a competitive team, if you are not seeing what you can get away with in literally every series, you play that's competitive, you're not doing your job. So I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly with that. They should have done what they did in Game 2.

I agree that it was a good strategy. And I was a, it's even incumbent on Isaiah Heart and Shine in particular, who is desperate to find a way to stay on the floor in this series to see what he can do to affect that matchup. And the answer was everything.

The answer was, I mean, yes, it was, it was, it, you're right, the similar plays are like borderline dirty, some of them are very physical, it's like walking a very delicate line of not just like what is legal, but what is like in good taste as a competitor sometimes. Yeah.

Great teams do that. Great teams have players who do that and can understand how to like toe it without going over too much, but the, the rest have to call some of it. This is a case where you could put together a super cut of 15 to 20 different Isaiah Heart and Shine plays that are questionable in all sorts of ways.

And some of them have to be called, some of them were not enough of them. I don't even really see that as being Isaiah Heart and Shine's fault. Like he is playing the game and playing his role in the way that honestly the thunder kind of require him to play it. I actually thought it was brilliant by him.

And you could see him as the game was going on, I'm be like, oh, I guess they're going on just let me do this. Yeah.

He was even, he was doing something that I've always wondered why guys didn't do more

is pulling Wemby away from the basket on drives so that he, he basically to slow him up on the offensive rebound every time it felt like he was getting some sort of advantage. I thought it, I honestly thought it was brilliant, but I also couldn't believe the ref salata because it was pretty blatant. It's not like you couldn't see what he was doing.

“And I think if Wemby the only, the only thing he probably made a mistake on is he just”

should have had his arms up like this because I think it just would have been more clear that Heart and Steam was grabbing him on the, on the sides and stuff, but it was pretty effective. And I talked about this a couple weeks ago. This is Karim, this is an entire career.

Yeah. Guys doing this to him, guys pushing him, guys elbowing him in the back, guys trying to provoke him and Karim, I think punch like five different guys, I won't broke his, broke his hand on Kent Bensett's face at one point. But my guess is Heart and Steam will not be able to get away with stuff in Game 3.

I am guessing these super cut was sent to the league today. Again, that's, that's the first job, right? It's like everyone is kind of needs to play their role in response to these things and figure out how to navigate them. I don't know that we had a player like this who's officiating a so unique, maybe since

the Kielo Neal, like is there any one in that time in terms of bigs that comes to mind for you? Yeah, Shack. Shack. It just wasn't fair.

Yeah. He could just get near the basket and he could just turn and duck.

And so they started to do, and I remember, this is where it was always tough for me to

evaluate Shack as like a top-fifthing guy, because on the one hand, I felt like he left stuff on the table and that he would always play himself into shape and, you know, there was really only one season where you're like that, he was fucking awesome from beginning 10, which is his MVP season. And the other hand, I don't think it was fun to be Shack eight months a year with the way

he was guarded. True. And they would pull on his arms and they would pull on his shoulders.

“And that's why he ended up having shoulder problems, and I think with at least one of his”

shoulders, over and over again, he's exploding to go up, and they're just kind of grabbing and pulling him down. So I would say he was probably the last guy I could remember, we were, it was a constant dialogue. And then some of the stuff that Pistons did to Jordan was probably the other big example.

Other than that, before that, that people didn't play defense that way. And like Lebron has taken a lot of hits and a lot of kind of borderline hits over the course of his career, but it's totally different as a ball handler. I think this is where the Shack when be comparison or Korean, if you want to loop him in, these bigs who are off the ball, trying to establish position, trying to set screens.

There's just so much space for the officials to kind of like turn their head ever so slightly

and miss crucial contact, crucial fouls.

It's a reason why bigs in the league in general on offense are just not officiated fairly. They are not given the benefit of the doubt that guards are. I had wondered if Wemby might be the exceptions that just because of his frame. Like you were saying, if he puts his hands in the air, just like he's so thin and he moves so much.

If you are someone like Isaiah Hartstein kind of pulling him out of the way, is that enough of like a neon sign saying, hey, there is weird contact going here for the rest of

in the way that apparently he needed to.

The thing that I just, I love watching Wemby, I really enjoy it, that sounds like Chris Collins worth. I love Wemby, I love doing hyper out of Wemby. I really enjoy watching him and one of the things I love other than how competitive he is and being an alien, landing from UFO, that's stuff.

I love that he doesn't bitch for calls. He really doesn't. And he takes a lot of punishment and I just think he's used to it. I think this is the way people have defended him since he was 14 and I think he's done a probably done a mental study because yeah, I think he puts a lot of thought into everything.

Probably as much as any young star we've ever had. And I think he's realized like it's not worth it for me to be bitching all the time. I need to be bigger than this.

I need to be the most physical imposing guy in the game, in the league and if I'm just

constantly bitching and you happen and complaining, that gets compromised, so he took it. But Mitch Johnson did not seem like he was enjoying it. It seemed like he was getting matter and matter and matter and my guess is it won't be the case in game three. Well, and they'll find ways to work around it, right?

Like one of the things you can do is because of Wemby's skill set, you can move him anywhere on the floor.

“You could run him through actions like a guard if you want to and they guys they are hard”

to try to have to defend him that way, which is something he's not comfortable doing. I think the other part about the not complaining about fouls too is Wemby for as much as he gets hit and held and pushed, like isn't one of these guys who is falling over all the time even on his own shots, like the Joel and Bead style. I think it's become a really cool part of his game, not just because, you know, some

of that just gonna turn people off. But you see some of the tip dunks that he gets now off of his own misses and you're only there to do that because you're not falling, you're not leaning, you're not trying to bait out the contact, like he's moving downhill so much all the time now that he's able to clean up and get just crazy plays with a kind of geometry that we're not really used

to seeing from anybody else. Yeah, Hassan, I talked about it two days ago, just like how important that game won was for him, which we all had the same conversations. I thought SGA was great last night. I really thought he had a command of the flow of the game and when he should step in and

I just thought like that's why he won two straight MVP's because it games like yesterday. Maybe the experience of watching Wemby, I don't remember feeling this way as a basketball fan since like those early 2013-14-15 curry range where it was just like, I can't get enough

of this because I've never seen it before.

And with the Wemby, like yesterday, it feels like every game there's something different. Yesterday it was just he just had these crazy offensive rebound putbacks from weird angles. You must have like five of them. Yeah.

“If you're interested in how we got that, you must want them to stop the game and replay it”

and tipping things from far away and being under the basket and reaching is octopus armor. I think he probably didn't even really have that good of a game for him. But it felt like he was consistently impactful in all over the place. The fox thing and then losing Harper. I feel bad for poor castle with the 20 turnovers and two games, which I sincerely hope nobody

hangs on him. He's not a true point guard. He's going against the scariest collection of defensive guards. We've probably had this century and he's been sloppy. There's a little bit of a Westbrook side with him.

Early Westbrook. Yeah. The OKC from O8 to 2014, a little added control, awesome one play, definitely a few plays. They're like, oh no, why'd you do that? A tendency to be involved in the biggest player, one of the biggest plays of the game and it might

be a good thing. It might be a bad thing. And like Westbrook is one of the 15 and 20 best players in the league. But it's just young and figuring out in the fly. And Fox was just so helpful for him for just being, having being the adult in the room.

“I think it's just so much to ask for Castle to just kind of navigate that under defense.”

Jesus. It's tough. But in the same way that with a younger Russell Westbrook and especially a prime Russell Westbrook, like what Harper gives you in terms of the fearlessness of his play, I will just take every day of the week.

Right. And you take that and you try to harness it and try to reign it in, like, okay, don't do these particular crazy things. Or in the case of this series, he's just like, mishandling the ball sometimes and he's trying to go so quickly and so aggressively through all of those Oklahoma City defenders

that he's just kind of like losing it. Yeah. I think that's going to be the reality if both Harper and Fox can't play. Like they just don't have alternatives, like you can throw Jordan McLaughlin out there. But it's not really going to change a lot.

You need the two ball handler approach, even just to get Wemby and good advantage positions. And so it's like, it's not an accident that the fewer ball handlers were on the floor. Now it's hard to even get Wemby the balls, hard to get those like post entry passes to him. Everything just gets so much more complicated.

the course of this series, like, it just can't be this terrible all the time in terms of the volume. Yeah. It's basically two a quarter.

“I remember in the, I think it was the 2012 finals that wrote a piece about Westbrook”

about the concept of a 90 10 guy, where the 90% is awesome in that 10% everybody's got the 10% that they're not really good at. They have some flaw.

And with Westbrook, the 10% was so glaring you always thought about it.

Yeah. And Castle as a point guard, you can, you just are kind of aware of it. It's like, all right, his flaws, he's a little sloppy. Yeah. And now that he has the ball all the time, I'm going to be thinking about this more

than he's a little sloppy, because he's 21, and he's going against Lou Dort and Corroso. And who's the other guy that they have, that's terrible. Okay. And Wallace. Okay.

I don't want to forget about him. First team all defense gets it Wallace. What about a first team? Yeah. Who just stands at mid court, waited to pick your pocket for it.

And has done that to, uh, done that to Castle at least once again. Well, so if Stefan Castle has a little bit of young Westbrook, is Dylan Harper, like the most super charged era commander we've ever seen of, like, here's the game man. Editing responsible guy behind him. Yeah.

He's Alien Eric Manor. I, I was so bummed when he got hurt. I know. Because that was another great thing about the series. You're watching Harper in real time.

I talked about this two days ago that just like, this is the worst he's ever going to be. And he's doing this. I was thinking about, I really value when a young point guard can rise to this. Because even you think like, some of the best point guards we've had, Tony Parker, the

2003 playoffs. Yeah. By the end of that playoffs, he was so shaky that they were like, should they trade him for kid? Remember, it was like a whole thing.

Absolutely. Kids of free agent. Do they do a sign and trade? Would this be an upgrade to get Jason, because Parker was a young point guard and they didn't know if they could rely on him.

Rondo was like that for the O.H. Celtics. It was like he was a good one game, not good the next game. And for Harper to be as consistent and also impactful on both ends. Yeah.

Pretty dumb finding. It sounds like he's going to play tomorrow is the word that I was hearing. I hope so. I mean, even if it's in a somewhat limited state, like they could really just use everything that he brings to the table.

But when you think about those three core guys, Castle is having the most normal, young player in the playoffs experience because of those walls he's running into. Harper, we really haven't seen the limits on it yet. He's still so smooth. Like, there was a play where before he left this game in game two is like driving one

on one through Lou Dord, just like one diagonal step at a time and Lou Dord is just constantly backpedaling and Dylan Harper who again is 20 years old, just body bumps, Lou Dord, a living fire hydrant out of the way for a basically uncontested lap. It's like, yeah, nothing about that is normal. Nothing about Wemby's arc and his like first playoff for a is normal.

Stefan Castle is looking mortal by comparison, but it's still awesome. And so if, yeah, you just have to feel like we've said it so many times, but like the fact that the future of the franchise is anchored around those three guys in particular, it's just about as safe a bed as you could possibly make and as encouraging a sign in this first run as you could possibly get.

“I think they should win the series and I still think they're going to win the series,”

but we'll see with Harper and Harper's compromise that's going to change the equation. Fox, the high ankle spring.

I never know what to believe with these anymore.

Sometimes high ankle spring is just like you're done for four weeks and then other times it's like he can play, it would seem as a point guard that would be not a great position to have a high ankle spring, especially against the thunder again. Like there's defenses you don't want to go against with any limitation and you might have to like if you're Harper or Fox, but it's not ideal.

They're going to be home for a game three. My guess is Fox is going to be a game time decision in play. I don't know this for a fact, but it's a home game. They're probably hoping they could split the first two in okay, seeing it come back and then actually unleash Fox and I don't know, I just feel like if the jade ups situation the

other side, which he really looked good in game one and I tweeted this that I thought game one, you know, there were casualties from playing 58 minutes at the pace that everybody played out. You knew something bad was going to happen in game two, we had two injuries, right? I think Mitchell might have gotten a little shaky too.

Yes, something. But jade up now seems out, I guess he's going to be out for a while. You could feel it with some of the lineups.

They basically have to go, they can do the two bigs with some guards, maybe Aaron Wiggins

“plays a little more, maybe I don't know what do you do, how do you replace the minutes?”

Well, this is where if the officiating changes around Isaiah Hartnstein and jade up isn't available to play, you're starting to see though like that cascading effect become a real problem. Yeah, because then literally who guards when be like, who are you throwing at him? We saw a little more of chat on when being game two, but he did okay, but he's not your

first choice. If jade up a camp play and Isaiah Hartnstein gets in, let's say foul trouble because of

28, J will minutes or like 40 Alex group, so minutes, like it's got one of those two guys is going to have to stretch really far in that matchup. And I don't know that either of them is fully ready for it. They both have things they can bring and try to make when be life hard in particular and also can contribute on offense, but all of the matchups get very strange very quickly if jade

up isn't out there like he really is the critical piece that makes a lot of this makes

sense for okay see. I actually like j will in this series. He's really good.

“Yeah, I like his top of the it's a little Luke Garzish that little top of the key three”

is getting some gars of flesh. Okay. Like Jay just tried to get. Jay will cannot. He's maybe your gars.

Everything cannot be through the lens of Luke and Garz. That can't be what we're doing. So little Garz is, no, but one of the things I like about him is he'll mix it up. Yeah. He got a fight with champagne his brother in the Washington game during the weekend.

Sure.

I don't know if the other champagne is telling against him, but he'll mix it up.

It's just in showing up in the same way that, you know, the Thompson twins were showing up for each other. And the morrises. Yeah. I mean, you got to come to your brother's playoff game.

I would think it's a requirement. I thought for sure a game too was going to have some sort of altercation and I had like a mad lives of, I had Wemby, Castle, Dort, and Jaylam Williams, some combination of the four of them. And maybe maybe even some Kelly Olinic if you got some minutes.

But I still feel like I feel like this series hasn't gotten chipping enough. It's been physical, but it hasn't been, we haven't gotten angry yet. I think it could be Friday night. No, yeah. Friday night.

Little, little spurs crowd having some spirits before the game. Yeah. Frisky crowd mad about the officiating game too.

“I think there's going to be a vibe in that game.”

As they should be, and as there should be, I'm looking at the fan duels now, and I'm seeing minus 500 for a Bismetck Beyondville forearm shiver to some Thunder player. Do you, I mean, would you take that one or what do you think the alternative is? I would love to see Bismetck come in for two seconds. Olinic has, there's, I think you could find like a two minute video of him doing

stuff and different playoff games. Most famously when he accidentally not Kevin loves shoulder out of a socket. Yeah. That's tough. Again, a lot of borderline physicality going on in the playoffs.

I don't know how that, the lines of what is an accident can really be blurred pretty clearly. What do you think's going to happen in this series? It is so injury dependent. I think if Jacob is not able to play, it's kind of just, it really depends on how many

ballhandlers the spurs have to. I am inclined to say if Jacob doesn't play the spurs have the upper hand in it. They've now taken a little bit of a tilt in their favor. And I say that just because Jacob is so important and because we saw Shay like read everything so perfectly, both in terms of spraying out to other players, but also picking his spots

on offense, that just gets so much harder when the spurs have a chance to game plan for the reality that Jacob is in out there. And so, you're going to rely a lot more on Alex Kruzso being a real offensive player and a scoring threat all the time, which certainly was the case in game one, but is in the other way.

It hasn't been consistent and reliable throughout the course of the career, even the playoffs last year. He's a little Josh Hardes, Hardesh, hitter, hitter mess, there's games when he just, they're not going in. Makes plays happen, but game one was literally like one of the best role player performances

I've ever seen in my life, so that cannot be the expectation for who he's going to be. Also, AJ Mitchell's kind of figuring out his way into the series if as we alluded to, he's even healthy enough to go. The next guy's up for OKC after Shay, without J-Dub, I think, are really difficult. And that's in part because this is not a chat offensive series.

This is not a matchup.

He can be a dominant score in, by basically anyway.

So he might have a game where he has 18, but it doesn't feel like 18 because he's, like, he's not forcing the issues out pushing, he's not attacking. It's just kind of like circumstantial baskets for him, I think. The series I shifted, they were dead even a day ago, now it's OKC minus 162, so I don't know if that means there's an inside info, Jay Will comes back awesome series though.

I mean, yesterday other than how well SGA played, it wasn't like the pretty as basketball game, but it was dramatic and riveting and I thought if you're saying Antonio, I didn't feel like I played well and I lost Harper midway through the game and I was still hanging around, hanging around, down two with like what three four minutes left and I really had to make OKC make some plays and I thought SGA really did some good stuff and more important

the OKC is really now settled into the role as America's villain. I think they've embraced it. I think their fans, it's us against them for the fans, this happened to the Patriots with me.

“You have to buy in officially and once you officially buy in, it's great.”

You're just like, everyone's against us, you're just, you're middle fingers around it all times, you're constantly, you know, taking everything personally, it's a great place

They should save for this and enjoy it. So if the thunder are to borrow your framing, a little patriotsish, does that endure them to you at all?

“Does their villainy make them a more appealing team to you?”

I just, I don't like the flopping. I just am not a fan. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like when guys on other teams do it. I almost feel like the thunder or the best at it, you know, there's theories that they practice

it. There's every game, there's 10 videos afterwards of different things that come out of it. But I part of the thing for me is, I don't necessarily think they have to play that way. They're so talented.

So I don't really fully understand it why they bought into that style. It obviously works for them, but I just don't like it. I mean, there's the two conversations of like, how good are they?

And clearly, they're amazing, third championship team, they've played at that standard

literally every night and then there's the how much do you enjoy watching them? And that really comes down to how much appetite you have for ignoring some of that stuff. I think if you, if you just pile up the 15% of most annoying behavior of basically any team, every team's got some stuff going on that's that really gets under your skin, whether it's, whether it's complaining to the officials, whether it's the shot selection, whether

it is the flopping, it just a matter of taste. And like for me, I'm willing to like overlook a lot of it because I really do like watching all the other stuff that the thunder do. I just like an eight, eight plus level. So yeah, that part is a payoff for me, but you can't just like write off somebody's experience

if they say, oh, this is a bad watch. This is annoying to watch. This is not what I like to spend time doing, you know, when I'm clocking out for my day and now I got to like grind through thunder tape because it feels like through the free throw line all the time, I get why that would be a chore, but they're also fucking good.

It's not quite as bad as Luca complaining after every single kind of like to me, that's the 10 out of 10, I just hate that probably the most. Not everything could be a foul on you, but for something we didn't have to worry about him for that long. Samail back questions.

Okay. This is from Kevin. I'm writing this the day after Wemby's 41 and 24 against OKC. If it came out that Wemby actually was an alien that he was legitimately not human at all. And we knew where to find more Wemby's like come out there with that effector interest level

in the NBA.

“I think it would for me if we did, but my point with that question is somebody was convinced”

that it Wemby might be an alien and crafted that and sent it in. That part is believable to me. The part that sent me over the top was that, oh, we can ascertain where he came from. And find more, find, you know, like go to go to the Avatar planet and pull more Wemby's down here in a play, would it affect our interest in the league, I mean, I think if there's

a literal alien involved, how does that not affect your interest in the league? How does that not make it more interesting? What is it? Whatever is happening.

It would lead to amazing halftime shows and morning shows and think pieces have humans lost

control of the NBA. That's coming up there. I mean, it's hard to be America first when you can't even be Earth first, you know? Like that. The talking heads would have a field day.

Mike from St. Louis S is the spurs back court of Castle and Harper, the most exciting young back court since the splash brothers. What other young guard kingdoms got you hot and bothered like these guys? There are the second and third best powers in their team and there are 20 and 21 in the western finals.

Yeah. Really good question. Splash Brothers, a great example. That started to happen in 2013, Range Curry was a little older though. He was in his bid 20s at that point and been in college for three years.

I was trying to think, I thought more people would come to mind and it was really tough to think of two young guards in the same back court. Yeah. We're this fun to watch. The closest I could come was the Derek Rose Ben Gordon, back court that the bulls had

for a split second in 2009.

Remember that? Sure. When Rose was a rookie, Gordon had that great playoff series against Boston and felt like he was the next Andrew Tony and it was like, wow. What a back court.

Ten more years and then Gordon left like the next year and went to Detroit and it was gone. But it's pretty rare to have two young guards like this. It's usually, it's usually it's two guards who can't play together like a jade and ivy and a kade and things like that. Or a step in a Monte Ellis is like, you got to pick one at a certain point.

The other guy is jettisoned into the next version of your team. I mean, even if you expand it into veteran groups, like this is so unique because these guys are so good and so young. But it's not as if they're just great guard guard combinations of any age that are this interesting.

For me personally, it's a fun castle until a Harper like among my maybe top 10 to 15 most watchable players in the sport period. Hi, great. And so like I am dialed in on every spurs game. I can get my hands on like especially around like this has been so fun to watch when they're

out there together or apart.

“I think it's really hard to compete with that.”

The only other young team I can think of in the league right now is I mean, we do love lamello and con together. Like that is that's a fun pairing for sure, but it's it's nowhere near.

I mean, I mean, it's sort of him Brandon Miller like it's it's all kind of a little fluid

out there, but when you're talking guards like Chris Paul and Booker had that nice little Phoenix run on sure that was really fun. We had if you go back to the 70s and 80s, you know, we had the the best one was the Dennis Johnson Gus Williams one that made the finals in two straight years. Those guys are both young they're both in their mid 20s.

So we've had that some might that yeah or were young Parker and Genoply might be it might

“be a good comp if you want to reach back a little bit.”

Both of those guys were. That's a great one. Wilder than these two, it was like two staff castles out there a lot of the time, but that can be fun too. Nation Finlay was fun for a little bit there.

Of course. Yeah, there's been some good ones. Just from Jeffrey, he listened to my Borat rewatchables and then the breakdown of game one of okay see and Borat and that movie talks about having a romance explosion. And he wants to know what the current romantic explosion team is.

The guys you would construct around your personal enjoyment, what would be the best. You just mentioned two of your favorite players. Yep. So if you put a team, that would actually make sense together of five guys that would be your romance explosion team, what would it be?

Oh my god. I can start as you think of it, please. I have Joker Wemby and Steph is three of the five and then I'm just going to work around them. So my three my three favorite players to watch anyway.

Yep.

“And I was thinking healthy halbert and assume we're having a healthy next year and I get”

Steph and Halbert and who can both play with or without the ball and they can both cut Joker Wemby, who's my fifth in this scenario? Who's a shooter that's fun to watch and play with? I almost just wanted to put Aaron Gordon in there because they put him in the dunker spot.

I do love that. Some corner threes and then he could just set picks and do stuff. That was probably, that was probably I have four. I couldn't get that. I couldn't get there with the fifth.

So are you trying to win or are you just trying to have a romantic explosion? Just like I love watching all of these guys that can't believe they're all playing together I'm having a great time. Yes. I think the like collision of all that talent is kind of hard to write like in particular

the Steph Yokeh Wemby part. I love watching Yokeh, I love watching him dissect the game but like Steph and Wemby are the important elements of that for me personally. And so like I would start with those two. I want like really kinetic players between them.

Like I want like Jalen Johnson types like super fluid can do a little bit of everything but like aren't being overtaxed in the way that the hocks overtaxed him over the course of this year.

“But I feel like we need some defense to be not like I like watching that's why I brought”

it to this. Yeah. Aaron Gordon's a great one. I think I almost might put Janice in this group. Like I really like watching.

Yeah, he's alive. Janice is alive. He's back. He's healthy. He's theoretically out of Milwaukee.

I don't know where we are in this scenario. But Janice of like I don't have to be the superstar. I'm playing with these other guys and I can just be like the best defense of player in the world and also an aggressive open court weapon at all times. That's a guy I want part of this formula.

I'm going to give you my young guy romance explosion team. Okay. Maxi Harper, Con, Flag, Klingon. Let's go. Do you need to towel off?

Hey, let's go, I got Klingon protected the rim, I got Con, Sprint, Sprint in the floor. I got Maxi and Harper going up and down and I got Flag over here just doing flag things. There's got to have a, I see this with all due respect. There has to be a better guy than Donovan Klingon for this team. There has to be a better option as I just needed somebody who could play defense.

I mean, just is shed off the board? Are we, are we so down on shed? We're just throwing them out and a chat would be pretty good. You're right. Chets probably in there.

I don't know. I don't know what we'll chat.

I mean, here's the thing.

If you want pure, pure watchability, just like enjoyment watching that guy work, give me a move to Diabata out there. Like the fights for 36 are going through the roof. The crazy rebounding, the like he will make one pass and take one shot every game that is objectively insane, but I'm, I'm along the ride for all of that Tyler sent a

Jonas email, actually, Tyler J is a crit, so he, there was a room in a day about the heat offering hero where the 13th pick and two future bursts for Jonas. I forget to report that Gary Warfell. I think that Jerry Warfell? Yeah.

I think that's how it was. Tyler says in past off seasons, I'd scoff at that, but isn't that pretty decent value with the new lottery rules, especially with the Jonas's injury history, couldn't they last, couldn't they be in the 4 to 10 range? I feel like first, or a little more valuable now.

Honestly, I felt the same way. I thought that was a lot.

You know, Jonas, see if two really good years left three, I've done a million podcast

segments about this. I feel like, but I don't know who else is desperate enough to trade for him and feels

The wolves, maybe.

“Maybe, but I don't, I'm not getting the same kind of picks from the wolves because I've”

already traded all their picks.

It would have to be a third team involved for sure.

The game is kind of has to be in that trade and if then that changes the calculus of why the tea wolves would do that. So I don't know. I don't know if the, I don't know if the bucks are doing better than that. That's one of those right kind of like, do you want to call this in, that can I get a swap

and we're good? I'm going to get a 231 swap, let's call it in. At some point, we need to do the full indexing of the complete range of offers that we have contemplated for Janus over the course of this entire saga because at the beginning, the idea.

This is a region. Oh, my god. Hero wear and a couple of firsts for Janus had to jump over, was just like, a hawk has to absolutely, but it would have been a non-start. Like, that's maybe in the pile, like, we're putting it in the roundup of deals for, you

know, for the blog post.

“But is anyone really taking that off for seriously?”

I think a couple of things have changed for one, just literally everything happening in Milwaukee, but also the relative value of those firsts, like in this new era, with the change lottery odds, it shifts the calculus a little bit around teams like Miami in particular, as far as how bad they could possibly be. They don't need to be fully bottoming out anymore, for those picks to really be worth something.

I think Janus wants to go to Boston, and I'm not sure Boston wants Janus. And I think that's the push and pull right now. What makes you think he wants to go to Boston? I just think he does. I agree with it.

I don't care. There's your social clip. There's your aggregated blog post. Yes, let's just, let's just, let's just run with it. I think he wants to stay in the east, and I think a certain guy in the Celtics says the

same shooting coach is him, and I think there's a lot of respect for the organization, and I just think that would be a team he would be interested in. But I also think Miami is another team he'd want to go to. Yeah. And by the way, the leagues more fun if he goes to Miami.

The leagues more fun if Jayland and Jason stayed together next year. Sure. Janus goes to Miami with BAM, and they just kind of figured out he culture style, just to salvage random guys from around the league, like the David Mitchell types, and all of the sudden they're scary.

Plus with like the Pacers coming back, the Hawks a little bit better, maybe the Pistons find a way to add a piece or two, like the East could be a really deep conference next year, especially if Janus goes somewhere that's actually kind of relevant. Don't forget House's wizards. Of course, the resurgent wizards, the train AD pick high pick and roll at the Bansa spread

down this side. I genuinely can't wait, but I don't know if that says more about them or me. Tony came to Laura wants to know when we look back in this area, the NBA will the thunder end up being to the Wendy Spurs with the bad boy Pistons were to the Jordan Bulls. The Bulls had to mentally and physically overcome that big hurdle.

The Spurs might have to do the same. The Pistons went back to back titles could this be, history, repeating itself. I didn't thought of that, but I thought that that was pretty interesting.

The problem is in the scenario, I guess you, so the Spurs would have to be the 1990 Bulls

in the scenario, which means they would, yeah, that's a pretty good one. I mean, it's realistic. I just think the difference is the Pistons were kind of on their last legs. Right. The second title, whereas OKC is young and has a big future ahead of them.

Well, narratively, I mean, you have the team that's kind of like testing him with physicality in the way that the Pistons did. You have, you have when be potentially having to overcome both that and them just competitively over the course of his first couple years in the league. Not only, though, does it feel different just because the Pistons were so much further along

an age and experience than the thunder are, but it would be like if that Pistons team were in place and they were a test for Jordan as they were, but they also just had like this other trove of young talent and picks that was also in the pipeline so that they could be a totally different but equally competitive version of the Pistons for the next eight years. Like the sustainability of the thunder is the unique element.

And so every other contender falls apart within like a pretty concentrated window. I think we have a lot of reason to believe that the thunder will not do that. They'll have to change. They're going to have to like draw lines somewhere. They might have to trade J-Dub at some point low, as they are to do it.

But they just have so much to work with in a way that even the Pistons of that time did not. Yeah, the funny thing about this conversation is okay, so you might win nine of the next

“10 titles and we'll be like, remember that, 2026 and we thought that they were going”

to be a stop cap champ for the first and now they're challenging Bill Russell.

One more Janis think from Victor, he mentioned, basically asking is there's if Janis goes to Miami, the zombie heat, does he turn his zombie Greek freak and does that get scary? No, if he goes to Miami, does the scene now become zombie on us and get the heat choose port on him and now it's 2021 again, basically. Is that how it works?

They just put it in two sun people?

I mean, the logic of the zombie says like as long as he gets bitten by somebody down there, as long as like a piece of a brain is eaten, then he becomes zombie on us. But what does zombie on us even mean? I don't know. It's like a game of thrones, white rocker thing.

I don't want any harder than that. But, Ethan wants to know, he's big next fan. If the next one, the championship with bruncin is their best player, considering all the discourse about how you can't win a championship with bruncin as a small guard as your best player, what are other sports equivalents of that?

And he mentions, this is an NFL thing, not your total forte, but if Lamar Jackson won the championship, and there's this whole narrative about you can't win with like a quarter bat who runs and moves around as much as Lamar.

“I don't think the next year going to win the championship this year, but I think if they”

did, it would be, it would be a reckoning for a lot of things we thought about the type of teams that could win a title, definitely, not building a team through the lottery, pinning your hopes on a guy who after four seasons was averaging 11 points a game career.

And I think you got what, like 104 million for four years, and it was like a polarizing

contract, remember? Some people are like, whoa, that's J.L. and Brunson, that's way too much. Where were you on that? I was, I was more bullish on it. I think if you were one, I think you'd be this, but I was like, no, no.

How is he going to get it? I thought he was a proven playoff guy, at least. Absolutely. I think if you were watching that Dallas team, even before the breakout against the jazz, he had in that playoffs, all of the signs were there that he was a good, at least like plus starting

level point guard. I thought maybe he would be the kind of guy who, like, make some all-start teams, maybe has like a Kembal Walker kind of career. This has been a totally different thing. This makes no sense. It's up there with Kauai is really the only other example of somebody's first four years,

not remotely looking like they're next four years, right? And it's just like a double leap. And he's so good in all the things that small guards are not supposed to be good at. Like for as much as people ring their hands around that idea, he gets in the lane and finishes

a manoeuvres around people in a way that we rarely rarely see, and maybe have never seen

from anybody else. So I like this idea though of kind of like puncturing the common logic around what a champion can look like. And I think you're right about the construction of the next, not only did they not built to the draft, they didn't really build their for agency either, like all of these guys

that got by trade. And so, yeah, even Randall was a forage in signing that turned into town somehow. And on the other side of this, I mean, we're just coming off of here, we're a really young team thunder, a really young thunder team won the title. And if the spurs managed to get out of the series, maybe even a younger spurs team managed

to win the title.

“So the conventional wisdom that like you have to have experience, you have to have all”

these things, get thrown out the window. I don't know what the requirements would be anymore other than you need the superstars. And clearly in this era, you need a lot of depth just to survive the sort of run. Jordan Malay and NLA wants to know if Wemby could pull a Jerry West and the Western Conference finals were OKC wins the series, but Wemby wins Western Conference MVP.

I haven't thought of that. I am on the record.

I always think it should come from a winning team.

I don't know how you, the MVP of a team that lost, but this could be a really good test case. If Wemby finishes 27, 17, and four blocks again, or whatever, and his plus minus is crazy out of whack and they lose in seven by three points. But I personally think it should be a winning team.

If he has three more games that look like game one, I think he probably should win. And that's even if Shay looks amazing. Right. It's even if even you would vote for it. I mean, you have to see it in context.

“You have to understand what's happening.”

It's not just about the numbers, but how much we're shaping and impacting the game. I don't think anybody affected game one in the way that Victor Wemby and Yama affected game one. And they could lose the series, and that could still be the case, especially if they're down all these other guys, and they don't have the ball handling, and they just kind

of fall apart, but he is the one constant, I don't see a reason you can't vote for that. I think the one thing that's definitely happened, he's the best part of the league, though. I don't think that's arguable anymore. The impact that he has and watching go up a level in the playoffs, I just think, I think

this is kind of a wrap. As great as SGA is, it's just what we're watching from Wemby is. Yeah. We haven't seen it. John K wanted to know, is Wemby the greatest threat we've seen to challenge Bill Russell's

crown for most NBA championships, which is 11. I don't think it's happening. I don't think it's happening, A and B we've been here before with, like, honestly, Shack and Kobe felt like they were going to win every title in the 2000s, right? When Wade and LeBron and Bosch all got together.

Not one, not two. Yeah, it's like seven eighths in realistics. So we've been in this spot a few times. Yeah. I would say, winning 11, the difference here is if he's 22 and his best teammates are 21 and

20, the kind of runway they're going to have skipping all the steps of, like, you know, Jordan didn't win a title two year or eight.

You know, Wemby might win a title in year three for all we know. I feel like it's much more likely that we look up 10 years from now and Wemby went be in the spurs one four and she and the Thunder one three and it was just kind of, like, a back and forth between them for supremacy during this time. But no, so things like as in the 80s, so like there's one five, something's one three.

Exactly. It easily could have been five three the other way. Last one from Brian from Philly. He said, uh, this is one of those series. Everybody seems to agree whoever wins the West will win the title.

He wants to know how many other times does that happen where the finals, where the series before the finals felt like the finals. So I went through this. Where is Rock at's 2018? Yes.

Sun spurs 2007, the Robert Horace shoving Nash into the into the thing. It felt like whoever won that series is going to win the title and the caps are winning.

“Lakers Kings 2002, I think, was a good one.”

The nets were in the finals. I either team was being them. I mean, couldn't all three of those, like all of the championships in the Laker three Pete probably would qualify at some point with some series they played or another in the West?

Yeah, the problem is in 2001 they killed everybody.

So I don't even think we thought there was this, they were just destroying. That was the second best team in the century. Lakers Blazers in 2000 was the other one. Yeah. That felt like, uh, an Indian I thought was a good team that year.

I actually, and that series is a lot closer than I think it gets credit for now. If you go back and you watch game four and game six, it's a really, really good series. But I think those were, uh, those were the four. Oh, and then one other, this is from BS weirdly, um, that wants to know why the next keep rolling out all these ex players that also have all this baggage from next pass.

Well, this is a good thing or bad thing. Marbury, Starks, Ewing, et cetera, et cetera. Larry Johnson, spree well, it's like the ghosts of next pass, not in a good way. But the MSG has come to accept them or you pro, or you con, where are you in this? I think we should honor our history.

I think if, you know, not how I feel as well. Like, what's the problem? Certainly with honoring those, like, it's Patrick Ewing wants to come watch the game. You're going to turn your nose of a Patrick Ewing. And I'm here for the big tent.

I loved the ceremony they had earlier this season where they brought out like 60 guys, like Ron Baker come celebrate with mixed legends.

I think once a Nick always in Nick is a genuinely cool thing in a league that feels so transactional

and so mercenaries sometimes, like, let's care about playing in a place and let's care about players and athletes and have relationships to a city and to a fan base. I don't think any of us need to be too cynical for that. Rob Behoney, I completely agree. I kind of like, it's a little weird.

It took a while to get used to it, but I like it. Because I think that's when you're a franchise that has generations.

“Yeah. I think you should embrace the generations.”

And they've done a good job of kind of the celebrities of the people that have been coming for a while, get priority for the seats. I saw a fatio as court side today. Yeah, but then all the other Nick's guys from the 90s and 2000s, I don't know. I kind of like it.

I do like it when the Celtics, even in the 80s and 90s, when they would bring the guys from any time a guy from the 60s or 70s was in the house, I was like, oh my god, it's who Don Nelson, but it is fun. If you're the Nick's is just every game, my one note, I don't know when Patrick doing entered his newsboy cap era, but I do have big feelings about that.

It maybe it just comes for all of us feels like he's, I don't know, tinkering with stuff. Yeah, maybe new stylist, him, John Travolta. It's a weird year for like, berets and alternative hats. Travolta might have ended the beret. You think so? Yeah, I think the, I think he killed the beret a couple nights ago.

So you're doing euphoria, you're doing it with Joanne on the prestige TV pod. I'm in fact, and we're doing the episodes left, two episodes left, and we're actually going to be going live to YouTube for both of those episodes. So come hang out with us on Sunday night with the ringer TV, it's the YouTube channel. Ringer TV, if you're not dialed in on the NBA that night, come want you for you with us. My daughter was on my pod the other day and said the the season seems

to be revolvering on Sydney, Sweden, and her boobs, and so hoping that they will gravitate away from that in the final two episodes was her review. I don't know how locked in you've been built, but they literally destroyed a skyscraper. Oh, I'm, I've been watching it. Yeah, they did a good Godzilla with her boobs. Just wanted to make sure, you know, when that happened, I sent you like an urgent slack alert, just to make sure it was on your desk, but I'm glad

“you're there. By the way, I haven't been the slack in eight years. Maybe that's why.”

Yeah, I'm always available on textile for you, Rob Boney. I appreciate that. All right, ringer NBA,

prestige TV, and I don't know when I'm going to see you again, there'll be some sort of life thing we'll have to do during the series, because I think spurs thunder will go at least six. I certainly hope so. Hopefully, there's enough like five and five in the end of the series. Yeah. All right. Thanks Rob Boney. We're going to take a break, come back with a

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the first time, get started by posting your first job for free at linkedin.com/simmons. That's me. That's linkedin.com/simmons terms and conditions apply. Survivor 53 hour finale last night. Chase Goodsepsion is here. Mallory Rubin is here. You might remember them once upon a time back in the 1900s where we had a little podcast called binge mode about a show called Game of

Thrones. Way, way back when. But here's what's enlightening us right now. We all love Survivor.

I had a big comeback this year. You guys have been in from the ground for, and it was an action pack season finale. Where do you want to start, Jason? Oh gosh. I'll start with the winner because I thought Aubrey deserving winner. Absolutely deserving winner. I've never necessarily gravitated to her game. I thought the season where she came very close to winning, but Michelle won,

“Carrong. I could see she played really well down the stretch, but I think that the criticism”

that her social game was not necessarily on point is that needed to be to win that game is correct and ultimately the fact that she was able to get to get to the position to win the last immunity necklace without Jonathan Joe or Rizzo realizing that she's the biggest threat to win the game is proof positive that she deserves to win and that she altered her game enough to win

under very challenging circumstances. I mean, it seems like a $2 million mistake to choose to boot

Tiffany over Aubrey, certainly for Joe, but Shouts to Shouts to Aubrey, just a real great, great run. She played it in that kind of new era way where she stayed in the middle, stayed in the cut, and then flowered late to kind of take the reins. And again, still managed to stay off those people's radar, just a wonderful performance. Have to hand it, Chair. Mal. Yes. Yeah,

“I really agree, and I think like season 50 first of all, what a treat to be here with you both today.”

Yes, talk about this. Yes, but genuinely, really memorable finale, and season 50 was supposed to be a lot of things, right? Not a lot of shows go for 50 seasons and 25 years, and one of the things that it was supposed to be, and I think when the initial castless came out, and there was this wide swath of players from the middle seasons missing, it was like, isn't this supposed to be a celebration of the era? And it ended up being that in a lot of satisfying and surprising ways,

and I think because of that core intention, and the level of just adoration that every member of the cast brings to Survivor. Like, well, maybe we'll talk at some point about the celebrity twist across the season, which worked, which didn't. This true celebrity at the heart of Survivor,

I've said this before, is Survivor. And so a player like Aubrey was always going to win this season.

“I think, a player who has the deep-seated trauma from injustices of Survivor's past, and the ability”

to, in Aubrey's case, I thought, beautifully and quite effectively articulate that at final tribal, a player like Suri, God tier, was never going to get to the end. There are very few other members of the cast who would have actually taken her and followed through on that pledge. I think guys, he might have probably nobody else would have, right? And a player like Joe was never going

but he was also never going to get to vote, because the other players have never watched him play.

“They don't understand what his Survivor history is, but they do understand Aubrey's. And so I think”

Aubrey always was a leader in the clubhouse for like most likely to win this season. And I think she really played well. The underdog story almost always hits at final tribal, and she was able to back it up with like actual savvy gameplay and a real narrative. So I think she's a worthy winner as well. Is it time for me to have a Zag? Do it, please, Zag. Please, Zag. This is why I stopped watching the show. Oh, come on. No, honestly, this is why I stopped like 20 seasons in. I just had it with

how they systematically get rid of all the most interesting, most talented, best-looking people during the course of the show. And what do we end up with? Oh, the middle. This is the new strategy. Oh, you mean the people that were smart enough to realize this person's bigger threat. Let's get them out. This person's bigger threat. I just, I thought she was so unimpressive. And the only reason she won was because 10 other people were way more captivating and way more of a threat. And she

just kind of waited until the end. It was like watching a cockroach. Okay. Go, yeah, please, you first. I want to agree and disagree. I Jason, I know we feel the same way about this, because one of the things that got me through COVID was us texting about Jesse during Jesse. This has been a real

“problem in the new era where like, I think genuinely it is difficult if not impossible for the best”

player in the season to win. And this is something that Jason and I have like agonized over for years. Jesse was one of the players I was shocked not to see in the season 50 cast. He was easily one of the most dominant players in recent memory. And the fact that he was not only not able to win, but not naked to the point where he could have tried to win was I think that I know Jason, you agree. And indictment of the structure of the game. So broadly Bill, I think your critique of like

can the best player win is valid inside of this phase of survivor, or show that I love and like basically can't live without. That said, I don't think that's the case for Aubrey. I don't actually think Aubrey is a player who falls into that mold. I don't think that Aubrey is worth it. Well, the chiffonitude, not charismatic, doesn't win challenges. Nobody really trusted her. And everybody kept around because they all were stupid enough to think if she got to the end,

“they were going to beat her. That was the only reason she won. I'll say this. I think it is very telling”

that over four appearances on the survivor television program. The first time she won an immunity is the first time she won the title. And she's going to be a part of the set for a practice did. Do you need that? Anybody could do that? Good for sure. I can't even remember how long it's been. Everybody's done that. Everybody's done that. Yeah. Exactly. Everybody knows. I guess there was a vote. But it's like everybody should put their chip on. It's going to be some ocean because everybody knows

it's going to be some ocean of really loves. Samosia and everybody could have done that. And I'll just say like I love Sory. She dominates the game when she's in there. Yeah. Absolutely mastermind the likes of which

we will never see that level of strategic and social life. Maybe again. If she could win a challenge

one time, I mean her threat, she could maybe win this game because that's you need the complete package. And I want to say that I agree with you Bill that specifically in New Era, there have been champions. Yeah. For sure. Gabler who came out of literally came out of nowhere. You're like what? Erica to a degree where the editing has not caught up with the way the game is played today where people stay in the middle. They stay below the surface and then they burst out late.

And I think that that is a production issue that the show needs to figure out in order to drive these narrative stronger. That said, I thought they did a good job with that this season. I really think they did. Well, I think if anything. We thought she was going to get make the final three just from that it. Yeah. When she was crying during the Mac and cheese is like, all right. There we go. When she doesn't put his tongue in the rice, I'm like, she's not winning. Thank you don't.

That's not a can be intended. Oh, man. I think Bill like you, you invoked the work cockroach. And I would just pause it that that is part of the point. Outlast is one of the core tenants of Survivor. And like I think that there are and this is actually, I think this is a healthy debate because part of what's fun about Survivors. Just like the players have different styles and approaches, fans of the show have different things they're looking for in a champion and different things

they gravitate toward in a player who they form an attachment to. I like all sorts of different

Survivor players like I actually think Jonathan played amazing season. You know, and I obviously

quite different from Aubrey and one of the things that was super fun about the backup of the season

beach would ever have anticipated that Aubrey and Jonathan would work together. And it was like riveting, right? Even for a moment, I think that the challenge beast is like a form of Survivor

“Dominant. Dominant is I think that the social strategists, the tactician, the intuiter, right?”

All of these things are different. I think that there is something undeniably impressive, though, about just being able to move vote to vote and not because I don't think by not being impressive. No, but that's a thing that's not much better. Yeah, she's there. I don't want to agree. That was

their first show. She controlled the Aussie vote, which Joe basically confirmed at final.

She had the better, she had the better ability to make her case, which it people forget about that part of it. Like she told the story, if you remember, why she should win. And it resonated. Right, that's what my wife said at the end. She was like, because we thought Jonathan had the best quote-unquote on paper game. He couldn't communicate why he played the best game. And you could feel him dying in real time during the tribal council, because and I think there was more

there, maybe in the edit. It didn't seem like people liked him. It was interesting to me that all the women had seemed like except for Stephanie did invoke for Jonathan. No, definitely. Chris, he both voted for Jonathan. They were the most of a ciferous in his defense, but how many women did invoke for him? To the point it was eight to three, right? To the point where too many had to say, is there a question in this monologue? That was like, that was just

weird. It's like there's a couple for him too, and one of the biggest episodes were, because all she had to do was throw him under the bus, and she probably would have escaped, and she didn't. And then she was like, well, I was trying to do right by him or whatever she said, I thought that was what was going to happen. Yeah, I mean, that's like an adjustment, Jonathan. Jonathan will play again. There's no question, right? And I thought one of the cool, like, when Jonathan

played his first season, everybody talks about Aussies, the jungle boy, there has never been a

more physically dominant single season performance than Jonathan's first season. It was astonishing. He was like Thor. It was crazy. The fact that in between his appearances, he said, I'm going to study at the knee of Boston Rob and really work to improve my game. Impressive. So now he will, I have no doubt make another adjustment. There's no question about that he's thinking the exact same thing. Like, I sat there and the relationships I needed didn't pan out, and I wasn't able to articulate my

case to, and I actually think Jonathan did a pretty good job across the season of like saying what he needed to at tribal council or in a conversation with somebody when he was trying to move a vote,

“but certainly Aubrey did too. And I think the like Aubrey got by because she wasn't the biggest”

threat. There were for weeks now. She's been a target weeks. So I just don't think that's accurate.

Was she always the, it is accurate with what's they got rid of three because they thought she was

the biggest threat. They got rid of Tiffany over Aubrey because they were afraid Tiffany would win the next immunity. And that they wouldn't be able to control this. Come then. But this is why this is going to be my celebration of the middle. And that this is why this shows frustrated to me. It really is a microcosm, a real life. This is what big companies are like. This is what he has canvas like middle-level managers who just figure out how to go under the radar don't really

make noise either way and just kind of strategically survive until other people flame out. And that's show. And this is why I stopped watching it because it's frustrated to me. I, I will disagree with you in the sense that the middle era of this show certainly up to winners at war was let the players play and very aggressively. So fewer advantages, huge alliances, big

“rivalries, big characters, making big moves. It has turned into and I think you're framing it a”

lot more aggressively than I would. That kind of game in the, in the new era with too many advantages and people playing the middle. That said, I, I think, I'm going to, I'm going to critique it through the, your take through the lens of Jonathan. I think Jonathan made a, made a tactically sound decision that that I, I can, I have a great chance to win the final immunities and my only real threat in that regard is Tiffany. And so I need her out so I can win

that and then we, then we get out of Aubrey and then we move on. Not realizing that you might not get that chance and I think it was an ego move and the issue is people who play as much as Jonathan has grown. He's still, I think, thinks of himself as like a challenge player, a physical player. He's only talking about like, they only see me as the big guy. I mean, you're talking about how much you're the big guy. And he looked at the game through the lens of challenge beast. Tiffany's got to go

not looking at the full picture. What are the conversations that are happening when you're not looking

that you're not aware of, who's been involved in votes who hasn't had a vote cast against them. And you've got to look at that whole picture and Jonathan's not there yet. Rizzo, who I love, is certainly not there yet. Though I think we'll see him again. Oh my god, no question. Yeah, but hold on with the strategy piece and this is why Jonathan lost. So Rizzo has an idol that

they never flush out ever. Two seasons in a row. Yeah, terrible, incredible. Yeah. So Rizzo has,

they know that she's never winning a challenge. She's just not. That's her fatal flaw. It's like Mitchell Robinson's free throw shooting. Like you can do hackers, hackers to re put her on the

“free throw line. She's going to go one or two. You have to keep it under the final five. They got”

rid of her a week too early. That was your week to either get rid of either Aubrey or Tiffany. I forget you had the immunity at that time. I think that was, you keeping everything in total of final. He's like, we got to get her out. We got to get her out. Just do it when there's five left or do it when there's four left. What challenge is she winning? There's no way. She's already proven. She's been last or if you're doing advanced metrics on it. She's last or second or last and every challenge you're

doing. So why do you have to get rid of her before the final four? I just don't understand that. During the island all day talking about nothing. This was like all I would talk about.

Yeah, it'd be funny. Yeah, 40 scenarios. Like this never dawned on them. I've had this this

exact discussion with like, I think this is a popular take, you know, in the wake of when specifically Sarri was voted out. And I think that you're undeniably right, that if you just look at the probabilities, like if you just look at the likelihood of certain outcomes, you can't argue against the case you just made. There's no, there actually is no counterargument. However, the infinitesimal scenario, however small, the likelihood is that some challenge

emerges. And like frankly, I think that production puts a challenge in front of them, that is suited to Sarri because they so badly want Sarri to win. You can't be the person who made the single biggest mistake in survivor history, which was to allow Sarri to get to the final. Because that's your last lesson. You get rid of it so in his idol. I don't know. I just didn't hear that. And I think that's also taking Sarri out is a resume for people because she's such a

beloved player. So they all want it to be able to say, I'm the one who finally got Sarri,

the goat, out of the game. And that's like to tantalizing of an absurd a pass on, I think. Yeah, I agree. I think Jonathan had a chance and his chance was get Arria when you had the chance. That was it, period. And then lean on your strengths as a challenge beast to say, I can be Tiffany. Why are you running from the smoke? Why are you running from the, from challenging Tiffany head up in it in the final immunity challenge? Like, take her on. Don't be afraid of that.

“That's what you're good at. Why? You get all free out. I love Tiffany. I was really, really”

rooting for her. I thought she had a great season. I understand why you'd want to get her out. But I asked, I don't feel like she had the same connections in part of it. I mean, you guys have been watching this show the whole time. I watched, I don't know, the first 20, first 25. I can't remember and then I faded off. The part that was different for me that maybe you guys is the history of these people on the shows was such a big part of how everybody perceived who they should

vote for, who is in control. They're using the past. It was like, why risk couldn't win because he hasn't tasted his blood enough or whatever stupid reason was. And I was just watching, like, who's playing the best game this year? And to me, like, I thought Jonathan and Tiffany were way better. I actually thought Riz was better than Aubrey too. But then everybody was pulling in the past and you were so close against Michelle and I was like, I didn't see that season. I don't even know what

that means. I'm just judging you by this year. When you were just in the middle, doing nothing for most of the season. I'll say that I think that there is, there's active activity on the island, playing the game, making moves, etc. And then there's this passive ability to read the game. And I think that is what this middle play that Aubrey displayed shows. I think Tiffany had an ability to read the game. What she was missing was an ability to rally people to get Aubrey out. She saw it.

Aubrey is the threat. We need to do this. But she couldn't build those connections to make it happen.

“And yes, she was annoyed by people. That's how I would be in this game. I would just say”

to get annoyed by, like, six, seven people. I can't help it. It seemed very much the same. But that reading the game, I think is the thing that is both the most amorphous, hard to visualize, as an audience member, because you have that omniscient view. You can see everything. You know, what's happening basically on the island from 30,000 feet above. And it's also what makes the game

watched him, the other five guys have noted this other people have watched the finale. He had like a big dip in his lip. I think just chewing, you know, trying to turn around happy still. I think he thought he won. And I think he must have thought he won. And he, and I think he thinks,

I think he realizes he made a $2 million mistake. I think that's known for a full year plus,

“because that's how long ago this was filmed that he didn't win. And he has spent every day”

stewing on and anticipating this moment of public regretting it. That's, that's what I mean. I think it was fun in the moment. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like, yes, it's going to end. The prediction mark, it's had Aubrey at, like, 36% before the show had been started, which I didn't, I don't know any of this till last night. And then heading into this final episode, she was the prohibitive favorite. That's not surprising to me just because even though they had not

actually read the votes much like before the game, you know, the zoom alliance, all of the three, you're not supposed to pre-game, but they do, they formalizes, they talk similarly, you know, everyone's like, who'd you vote for? Who'd you vote for? And yeah, it's an NDAs are not enough people know that at some point where it gets out and then it travels. I did not know that about the markets in Aubrey, but I think the edit, frankly, from episode one, made it pretty clear that

Aubrey was going to make it far because there was, we had these kind of two phases of the edit.

The first one, you know, in, like, Christian was the player I was, Tyson, host of

ringer, excellent ringer podcast, the podcast spoken. If you were listening to this and have not checked out the podcast spoken, check it out. If you love survivors of fantastic podcasts, Tyson is the best. He's my favorite survivor player ever. One of my most recent new favorites is Christian from David versus Goliath, right? Christian is, I was, when the castless versus 50 came out, I was just overjoyed that we were going to get to see Christian play again. Christian was so prominent in

the early episodes that I was like, fuck, there's literally no chance Christian is winning this season because it wouldn't be devoting this much time in the early episodes. So Aubrey was in that interesting spot where there was, it was so conspicuous in episode one, a centering this feud between Genevieve and Aubrey that didn't end up bearing fruit and being really meaningful in the inane blood moon episode, but had no consequence early on in terms of being featured as

prominently as it was. So it's like they're telling us this is going to matter for a reason. Then we get to the middle of like the surging, I'm in underdog, right? Okay, I won't make the same mistakes I have in the past. People start targeting Aubrey, then they start talking about how Aubrey has a

“good story. Oh, tips making some good some good points. I think this has been, again, I love”

survivor. There's like the mini version of it where you're watching a challenge and the literally the scoring the music of the scene changes right before the outcome of the challenge. So you're like, I guess I know who's about to hit the shot and win. Why do they do this? Yeah. The tip of the edit, there was a period of few years ago where they worked more actively. I think to obscure the outcome and how they edit the show because so many people were on to it. There were a couple

candidates, I guess, and how this season was edited. I think Jonathan was one of them as well, where it was like the way he's being edited. You did really believe he was going to get pretty far. Tiffany's the opposite. Yeah. I didn't thought he thought enough time on her and me, well, she was cranked out the challenges. The only finalists, the only final five contestant with a no confessional episode. Right. And so I think they really, they really, they really overcorrected on Tiffany said it

in particular. Sorry. Tiff is great. Show when at some point. She will win. So we'll result. Did you think there were too many gimmicks to season? No question. No question. Is that not only too many gimmicks, but too many game-breaking destructive gimmicks. It's one thing to have like blood moon and it was like a name. It didn't really matter. But then you have like

the Jimmy Fallon one turn, which was basically outrageous. Put a gun in Christian's hand and

tell me as to shoot himself. Like it's there was no chance he came back from that. Yeah. And too many of the advantages were like that. The Billie Eilish boomerang, which it's notable to me how many longtime survivor watchers and survivor contestants turned, survivor content creators have continuously been like, oh, um, Rizzo should give the, no, he can't. It's the boomer, he has to keep it. And that mechanic alone

is just dumb. We want to see players make deals. We want to see players be active, not get locked in these boxes and too many of the gimmicks. They won't fight it. They randomized the game too much. That's

“you. I think they're just too prohibitively dangerous to the person who gets them.”

I could not possibly agree more. I think again, the true celebrity in survivors season 50 is

the Mr. Beast thing, which I had been dreading, given how prominently it had been teased in the trailers,

was like kind of amazing actually in defense at the center of just a, yeah. That, so it's, I think

two things. One, when Jeff is talking about the blood moon and how iconic and historic it's going

“to be. And that's why we're here to make a historic moment. It's like that there are not,”

that's not how a historic iconic survivor moment happens by you saying out loud. It's about to happen. It happens organically and authentically because of the decisions that the players make. And the blood moon robbed the players of the ability to make decisions based on their play to that point by artificially dividing them into groups that were too small. Do the, the five, the five spoken crew talked about this a lot of the time. But do a 17 person tribal it? That would have actually

been historic. Now, the Mr. Beast thing worked out because because it allowed it came up right beast and like they got the two million great. But it allowed devins to be heave fearlessly and boldly, which is his game. It was an amplifier for how he already plays. And I think it revealed everybody else's collective cowardice because they let him do it, which was demanded. How could nobody else stand up and say, I'm going to do this instead? The Jimmy Fallon thing I will take to my

grave, both because of my affection for Christian, but also because to your point, Jay, it deprived a player who we love to watch operate of the ability to operate it all. It's a, it's a, it's a

viola, it's a sacred survivor tenant, which is the one thing you will never have to do on the

island is right right down your own name. So right away, I'm out. But it's just once you go back and

“you have to read that out loud and say that and then do it, there's literally nothing you can do to”

save yourself at that point. And then what, what, what were all of the alliances and the games and ship four? Genevieve, who I think is a great player found two idols and got voted out because the game didn't allow either of them to make it back to her in time because of that artificial division of the structure. So like, I think the moments that heightened gameplay and centered it and allowed the decisions that the players had made to that point and wanted to make in the future

to be at the, the, the four, including like fire making, right? Like the, blowing that Jeff revealing that, which I'm sure we'll talk about was like astonishing, but the fact that two players who had lost fire before were facing off and fire. I was like, my jaw was on the floor. I'm like, I keep, this is actually poetic. This is like, this is mythic. This is what survivor is. Jimmy Fallon coming in or like a 25 minute spear fishing aside with a survivor super fan. I'm like, I'm a survivor

“super fan. I didn't get to go do that. Why do I want me to watch this? You know, the moments”

that move me the most this season were like, Aussie crying about his father. And I was like, I did not expect to feel this way about it. Aussie seemed, but I'm like, bold over by the crowd to be moved. How many times you cried now? I was genuinely affected by that Aussie moment and even something really like, you know, like a joe and devins having just this very authentic connection about that would really touch me. The moment that got me the most this season,

not even close won't surprise Jason who knows about my Colby obsession to hear this. But like, Colby being voted out. It got me because it's like, not just because he's just insanely hot.

Not always has been. And I'm one of my formative crushes. And I was sad not to get us to see him.

But like, that's a moment that only season 50 of survivor can give us, which is like, this person you watched grow up on your TV sit there. The guy used to be a hot shot, challenge beast dominant, beloved, like poster boy heart throb. Then he comes back. He can't get it done. He doesn't handle it well. You know, then the third time. And like, to be there after 24 years in his 50s as like the fatherly figure and sit there with that like humility and humbleness and grace,

I was just like, this is actually kind of amazing to me to have watched this person move through the phases of his life. And to see the way it impacted the other players around him who were in tears having to to send him home knowing he would probably not be back. I was like, this is why I'm watching a season 50. This is amazing. Also, one of the top 15 people that will more charismatic this season than the win of Aubrey. I will say that I don't disagree that she's not oozing charisma

by any end. What were your family of Aubrey moments during the season? You're my favorite. Well, I love the Genevieve feud. But those, that's one of those editing decisions where, you know, from my perspective, it was they gazed at each other across the beach and then hated each other and no explanation. I want to know what happened. And they should have made more a hay out of whatever that was because it seemed so deeply felt that both of them were just

simply not going to work with each other after whatever happened on that beach. But that was great. I mean, that's the stuff I love. Is these petty rivalries alliances based on, on based on something?

together. Yeah. Yeah. Can I give you my Mr. Beast impression on the show?

Please, bigger teeth. Why don't? Somebody tell them like, hey, you're probably going to be never

sat there, just smile like you're a serial killer for the entire time you're out there. That's one of my most disappointing moment was when Christian turned on Mike White, who had befriended him and even brought him to the White Lotus thing. And I do feel like I feel like Christian worked the long con on Mike White who loves this show and should know better. Or I'm telling you,

“I think first of all, I think Mike White was like, this is my guy right here. Meanwhile,”

Christian did the full fucking Scarface double cross on him. Let's tell him it is. Is anybody working a longer con than Michael White who has brought that's the thing he got out of his mind? Motel survivor players into the White Lotus universe. Yeah. And he got all come up. Close to the official podcast with Mr. probes and whose who dangles these appearances in White Lotus as as boons for being in his orbit. I think Mike, I think Mike was trying to do the

exact thing to Christian that Christian did to him on the Christian got their first and honestly, Christian had to. We had to do it at that moment. Mike White, another more charismatic contest of the robbery. Very true. That was an early Christian and Mike played together. Right. They were on and that is my favorite season of survivor. Yeah. If anyone's like, what old season should I check out? I mean, they're a ton. Here's versus villains. Blood versus water. I mean, they're

amazing. Yeah. Yeah. All of the tony seasons. Winters of war. They're fantastic. But like David versus Goliath is a fantastic standalone season. And a lot of those characters have been a part of survivor lore moving forward. Christian was on the one hand right to identify that like people were looking at them. And Mike was too willing to say like, my David versus Goliath, guys are my guys. Like, let's do it. Yeah. Christian, realizing that was a threat was right. I

think that there was no literally no chance that anyone who was playing this season was going to give Brazilian air, Mike White, $2 million in prize money. So like, I don't think he needed to be eliminated in that sense. But he isn't the final five. Yeah. He is a very compelling and artful director of decisions. And I thought the way that he like with the laser beam to the heart. Yeah. Picked at that scab at that Gabby wound. That was your mistake. Holy shit. Like that was

riveting to watch. The context there is Christian and Gabby had a what seemed like a rock side alliance. Yes, bordering on perhaps a mutual crush. Like it was it was, yes, it was powerful

television. And at a crucial moment, she turns on him. He survives it. But ultimately, it does wound

his, his campaign going forward. And it was a big, big moment. And from Mike to put his finger on that,

“I thought was, I thought it was too soon for that kind of move. And I will add this. I think Mike's”

other mistake, if you could call that, he came in too shredded. Yeah. Keep your shirt on. Yeah, keep your shirt on. Yeah. Don't, don't feel like I've been working with the guy who, you know, gets the hem's worth ready for the cinematic universe to, to prepare for this. It's, it's telling too much. Yeah. He had great. Um, we didn't talk about Joe yet. Yeah, Joe with a goose egg in the final three. Very rough. He has a well, in the finals twice. And just really tough. And to read just

drive by shot him with a joke, the joke. But whatever she said, that was just an unbelievable throat slit. That was so, so Joe, every Joe probably should have been a red flag for him that

everybody was so delighted to never talk about him, never vote him out and just keep him going.

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's having the same way. I think Joe showed good growth towards the end of this season, recognizing that his honor and integrity kind of gameplay is one very old fashioned and two just is not a way to, to win the game, to go far in the game, to be a threat to win the game on any level. That, that said, he, he brought it up in the final tribal council talking about how he, he added some layers to his gameplay. And that's the part that didn't resonate with me at all.

“I did not feel that Joe, meaningfully, here's the thing, Joe as a survivor player thinks he's playing”

the on a stand integrity game. And to a certain extent he is with in relation to everybody else, he's also lying and playing survivor early, but not recognizing it. And then later, when he's saying,

remember that either. My wife and I were like, what did Joe do a double cross that we forget? Yeah, I think he was like trying to basically reposition something like saying to coach,

coach one of, as always, one of the most bankable experiences in this unpredictable world is that

watching coach on survivor will be the highlight of a lifetime. Another one, one charismatic, it's not really, I'll just keep listening him. He is such an incredible character. I just can't, like, I just, I've, I personally never tire of it, but saying to coach, I will never write your name down. And then we get the, the pairs elimination, which was like, again, an example of I thought a much better twist than some of the ones that were touted in the time, in the moment of being like a

“huge twist. It's like, actually interesting to pair people and then you have to vote out to people at once.”

I like that. Yeah, that was really good. Now, I think that Joe is, Joe is a little bit of a, like, every person inside of them has two wolves, right? Like for me personally, because as Jason knows, watching Joe a couple of seasons ago with Eva was like one of the most emotional and moving and deeply, I think genuinely deeply affecting experiences in the history of survivor. It was, it was, it was, it was a blockbuster television to the point that I am convinced, production,

tinkered with the challenges to keep Joe in the game for two or three extra episodes when they realized he couldn't do a puzzle. It's entirely possible. It was just beautiful to watch that. I thought, like, sincere. Yes. It was. That said, Joe going back to camp after, like, Devon's gives us one of the most authentically incredible moments in survivor history, and Joe says to everybody has the fucking gall to say to everybody, that was disgusting.

Wasn't appropriate. I'm like, dude, what game do you think you're playing? This is survivor.

“Now, I keep people trying to play their version of survivors fine. And if you want to do the”

honor integrity alliance, it's not personally for me. I like watching people stab each other in the back and cut each other's throats and then try to justify why the person they did that to should

give them a million dollars. Like, that's amazing. But if you want to try to do it differently,

that's your prerogative. That's actually fine. Don't say you can't believe that other people are doing the thing that everybody is there to watch. The whole point to show. Yeah. That's it. We have it. Who is the one if we reset this season and just started over again? Who is the one that got voted out a little earlier, Jason, that you feel like, man, it's just almost like a sports series where it's like, oh, man, if they didn't hit that three in game one,

we probably could have won that one. I think there are several, but I'm going to go with Genevieve. I think Genevieve is one of the most dynamic players we've seen in the new era. Yeah. In her previous season had this ability to scramble from the bottom against adverse situations, hold fast to toxic allies as meat shields in a way that showed a level of ability to read the game that I think and read the middle game that I think is uncommon and it's very smart,

“very tactical. And I think that's why Aubrey had to get her out immediately. Immediately.”

Yeah. The play in the middle of the character. Yeah. I think Genevieve is a great pick for that. I have two nominees. One is very quick because it was it was injury. So there's not much to talk about, but Kyle, I think would have gone incredibly far in the game. And he's one of the more impressive winners and recent memory. And I would actually be fascinated Bill for you to go back and watch his season, given you're overall feeling about kind of like biting your time as a strategy because

the way he did it, I thought I was like, you should be like in MI 6. Like it was unbelievable. And I think you would really have respected his game and wanted to watch and play this season. But I think that maybe the spirit of your question, the better answer is, since Jay took Genevieve Charlie because this was just a bizarre self-immolation that didn't need to happen. And I think it was like kind of interesting to watch given that it was very genuinely

born out of his personal trauma from Maria. Charlie's a really good player. Like he did incredibly well in his season. He had an alliance that took him very far in his ally as we know. Even if you didn't see a season, you know, for watching this season, he's number one didn't vote for him. And

he has just never gotten over it. Like it's a sincere, sincere wound he carries. And he just completely

misread the riso thing. And allowed that, this, this, this mystery, this misperception that riso was Maria and had done to his ally. What Maria had done to him to, he imploded his own game because of like the wrong read on someone he hadn't watched play. And I think whether like you let your own personal trauma or baggage, lead you to a certain, certain decision is like very human and that's interesting to watch. But I wish Charlie had just been like, all I know is what

I shouldn't let this be the arbiter of the decisions that I make. It just was so strange the hold it had on him. And I wish we had gotten to watch him play a little longer because he's a, I think he's quite a capable player. Jason, um, can you, I know it's, it just happened. So you probably need more time to reflect, but what do you think, what do you think, what do you think this final three meant to the abanian community? Well, I, I was saying when, you know, riso was talking

about how important this is the abanian community, that first of all they have do a leapo. So they're good. I think the abanian community at war is, they're failed. They're doing okay. Yeah. You know, action bronze in, uh, granite, jaca, former arsenal player. Like there's, we're doing okay. I remember the take in untanti. They're doing good. They're doing well. I, I think riso, listen, riso's got a lot of potential. I think we'll see him again. I think he may be over rates his own

game to a degree. He, he needed to control a vote. If you're never going to be able to win a challenge,

“you need to swing a vote somewhere down the line. And he was just, I think a little too passive”

and made the ultimately cut his allies off at the knees way too soon. He needed to skate through, I think, one more vote with Sari and Aussie. I thought they needed to, don't you think he needed a flip when there was like six left and do a new alliance with, with Tiff and Sari? I think would have been a move. Yeah. I mean, that's the move too. Because he was, he was drawn dead in the

one he was in. I think he was always going to the third guy in that group. Here's where I'll disagree.

I think that there's two ways to do it. And both are very strong historically. Yeah. One way is you have one, only one, number one ally. And you say, you and me, we're going to the end and whatever happens there happens. Or you flip at some point. Both of those work really well. But you know, I think there's so many examples of you need that one ally. You just need the one. And I thought that Rizzo had gone too far down the road with Sari to not hold on to her for at least one more till you

get back together. I mean, like, till you get back together and you get to do it for people like that. That was one of the great things about her game was everybody felt like they were her number one. I mean, well, you know, Sari was getting around. Yeah. I mean, that's part of her, her just magic is the ability to just win everybody to her cause and really truly steer and direct the outcome.

She said, it's amazing. It's like if CR was on survivor, CR just floats in in different groups.

“I think you do very well. He digret. He digret for the pie. He need the nicotine. Could”

would they be able to drop in the nicotine? I think CR would get double crossed and it would be like one of the most devastating moments. It's a rather history. People are trusting. Yeah. People would just be at it. Yeah, too trusting. Too nice of a guy. The love by all warm open heart and then just absolutely of Sari did. That's the whole point of the show. I really like great TV. I really liked risotto and joy to him. And I think he was actually, you know, I wonder, like, should you hold back

during the early travel councils? Because if you're just like he's somebody who could have like a podcast, like he's just like, on the more eloquent side of those things. So I think as he's like just very, like for two minutes, just laying out like some big picture angle on the show, they had to have been thinking like, I don't want to be in the final three with this guy. He's going to be able to explain his case the best. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, like he is able to not only

succinctly and clearly say the thing that needs to be said, but he does it with, with, as he would say, some cinema, right? If he makes it really compelling and dramatic, he draws the eye.

“Rizou is one of my favorite recent players. And I think that my sense of joy, I'm curious”

if you agree with us from 49, I think this is a pretty widely shared experience. Very similar to what Colby went through in real time on season 50, where the first couple of episodes you're like, what's going on with this guy? This is really a lot. And then you just fall in love with him and it's so fun to watch him play. And I think like, in general, I think a problem with the recent seasons of Survivor is that the players are way too self-aware. They're all super fans. They're obsessed

with the game. They all think they're survivor scholars. And so they're not only constantly like, I'm the best. I know exactly how to do this because I've crunched the tape for my entire life. I think the part of it that's fun is they're all at the experience. When you have a season like this, we're like, you can watch Rizou pull coach aside and say, to a player he idolizes and grow

watching. We don't slay dragons at camp. We do it at tribal. Like, it was incredible. And I

think watching the way that he navigated his interactions with these people. He idolizes was genuinely

most of the players who are obsessives are too. There was a season a few seasons ago. I can't remember

“which one it was. We're like, I think six of the players were podcasters or in the media. And it's”

like, they're just too hyper aware of what their image is going to be and how they're going to play as TV characters in addition to as like survivor players. And I would love, obviously we're not getting that because the T's for 51, which I have to be honest, I could barely follow and did not understand. Like the open era explanation of like all the advantages and everything that's ever happened in the game is in the mix. I'm like, I'm not really totally like following how to work more

adventure. I mean, the opposite. We need a clean slate. I completely agree. Yeah. It seems like that, I mean, this is just a guess. But it seemed like maybe they're going to try and do a one-world type

of situation. So build one world was there were no two camps. There were no two tribes. Everybody was

just on the same beach. That is kind of interesting to me if they're going to do that. But I agree with Mal. Like, let the players play. Take out some of these randomizing elements that have been

“introduced lately. I think that there was, now, maybe Jess has data that backs up that people actually”

love this stuff. And in which case, fine. That said, for me, as a person who'd been watching a long time, there was like an ideal that that trusted in survivor. I would say like around David's Viscolias, Maloney, Los Genics when it was like a minimum of advantages and idols. And you knew that when an idol left, it was coming back that was very predictable. And it allowed players to just play. Yeah. And now I think you're looking over your shoulder. You're wondering if I pick up this

advantage of how is it going to harm me? There's just too many things that take the players out of the experience in ways that I think I think hurt the game. Did you, did you both miss having an actual reading special or we learned more stuff about bad blood between people and did people regret stuff? And because I know Jeff proposes on the record as like, he didn't really like those things anymore. Yeah. I kind of enjoy him. I almost wish like they had done a one hour and just put it on

“Paramount or something. They could put it in the throw window. I'd like seeing the bad blood. And”

I'd like learning more about how people felt about the show. I thought it was weird. They punted on

that. I always like when Jeff asks, like, if this person had been at the end instead,

who would have voted for them. And they raised their hands on the person who made it. In, in, in in this case, it didn't happen this way because Aubrey made the right decision to choose to take Joe, but plenty of plenty of players who have made a decision about who to choose to have next them. It made the wrong decision. And that person is won. And it's like something they think about until the day they die, right? Yeah. And then Jeff asks, would you have a, and then it's like just a

to unbelievable thing to watch those hands go up in the air? So I miss that specifically. But of course, if that had happened, Bill, if we had just gotten the true reunion hour at the end, what we would not have gotten. Oh, yes. Was Moonlight La La Land all over again, one of the most batshit what the fuck just happened live TV moments in the history of pop culture? Like, I'm not, I don't think we're overstating it to say that Jeff's boiling firemaking. Jeff bringing

it up and saying at the final four, it's like this is an art that actually he's still in the game. What is this like, what am I doing out here? He tried to kind of like roll with it. He, you know, until Jeff, Jeff was, at the end was like, okay, go sit down and then realize, like, oh, you spoiled it. Yes. So Jeff's explanation, which I watched this morning on one of the morning shows was that, and this part makes sense. He's not watching the shows that's happening,

because he's already seen it. He's probably been involved with the editing, probably like, no, no, do you use camera too? I don't like that angle for that one. He's doing all that. So he's seen it and he's prepping and he's getting the live stuff right in. It's hard toast to the live shows. I've said many times. It's hard to host. Yeah. So I empathize with him. He clearly either got bad information from a producer or, or got this combabulated. I would go with the bad information. Because you're

doing a three hour show, your live, you know, I'm going from here to there. There's a possibility and I would sit this as an older guy who had two brain farts already this year in the podcast. There's a possibility he just brain farted and forgot that they had and shown the riso thing yet. And now retroactively is like, oh, they told me, I don't know. What do you think? Is it brain fart or producer of the state, Jason? Having been around TV and live productions and enough,

that is a mistake that is structural 15 people made that mistake. Yes. There is a director and a segment producer who it might be that Jess was like, okay, let's now let's bring on riso, brain fart. But then, like, five to ten other people need to just be like, okay, I guess, it doesn't have a

Nothing. Or somebody come running down the aisle and go like this. It should not have happened. And it happened because a whole load bearing part of the production collapse, not just Jeff. There's

“no way it's just his fault. Yeah. I think, you know, they decorate camp and particularly tribal”

council on these sets with like a lot of specific touches, right? You know, they'll be shields or phoenixes. Sometimes there are skulls. And I would encourage everyone who's a part of this production to get a scan of their skull, committed to the public record so that we can look and the future seasons of survivor for every skull that is part of the set deck and make sure that the people who did this were not murdered by Jeff. Because this is not something that should have

happened. And we were texting in real time, because first of all, I don't think it's possible that

we're not watching this in real time unless it goes. Yes. I don't think it's possible that there's an explanation of like he was going to bring riso out. And just the mistake was simply saying, go sit down. You become the final member of the jury, which obviously was astonishing when he said that out loud. Because then it was when to die of what had happened. And then the hush, the fellow over the room, Jeff saying, wait, what just happened? My heart was like seizing, watching it. The fact that

riso came out at all, what's that happens no matter what Jeff says from there, they have fucked it up

“because why is riso happening? Yeah, exactly. So it, I think then it has to be just the sequencing”

and the fact that that happened at all before that segment had aired, it's just a colossal mistake, the thing that we were texting about was like, why didn't they? Because it's, it's aired live on the east coast, it's done. There's nothing you can do about it. So everyone will know and that's like really a shame. However, we were texting like, why did they not edit this out of the west coast airing? And I'm paramount the next day. Yeah. I was just thinking about everything.

Baffled by that until I kept watching and saw that the answer was clear, which was the Jeff, then went on to a reference in five times from there. So you couldn't have edited it out because the rest of the show wouldn't have made sense. And I give Jeff, huge credit for that. Because this was like, I mean, the fact that it's like what all the articles are about and it's like the lead of every conversation today is such a huge bummer. Oh, but then I'm way to second next next week.

Didn't they intend to do this intentionally? Oh, yeah, yeah, I just wanted to get the new

“cycle going, but like, oh my god, I think there is something. This is the spin that I put”

on it if I'm Jeff. Survivor is a game about humanity and overcoming failure and mistakes. And so there is something so meta about it. In the season where Jeff put himself into a challenge and then bombed and had to say, boy, I really like have more respect for what you guys are all doing out there that Jeff basically didn't say the right thing in his version of Final Tribal. And it's like a huge story that people are going to be talking about. Now, Jeff can have his version of

that moment after basically like 25 years of elite elite work at something that's super hard. People people are mad Jason, the angered people. I get it. I mean, he did spoil a huge part of it. But again, not his fault alone. It can't be. He's not running the cameras. He's not bringing

a riso from the green room to the to the stage door. There's a million things other moving

parts that are happening that had to fail to let that happen. Big winner, riso, because he was just pathetic in the fire and fire challenge. And nobody remembers now because it was the purpose mistake guys practicing all day and he came to get a spark. First of all, we're doing time loser and fire. That's another one of my controversial takes. I don't love the fire. I don't love it as the side or I just feel like it's become, it's too important of a thing in the shows legacy. I get it in

the early days. But in the early days, they did a lot of things different. Remember in the early days, each person would walk in front of the three people left and it was almost like they were defense attorney just ripping everyone apart before I love it. Here's my one. Why did they do it for that? I wouldn't spin on you. Why did they get away from me? Get up and walk and they would have a whole thing prepared. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. Fire has become much more important post

like season 38 when Rick Devons was notably eliminated after Chris Underwood came off of

the edge of extinction and had the brilliant idea. Really truly revolutionary survivor idea that

I've been out of the game for so long. The way to prove that I'm in it to win it is I will put myself and fire and say, "Come challenge me. I will win." And he won and he ended up winning the season. That is that organically became such a moment that now it's basically part of the show. I'm on the

move fire earlier. Oh, so what? Surprise people with it. Yeah, interesting. We do a game of thrones survivor of all the characters who wins. Oh, gosh. You know, we just got free vote at early.

“I was just going to win. I was just going to win because he's so crazy. Yeah. I think he's going to win.”

You're going to win. You're going to win. You're going to win. You're going to win. I think he's going to win. But around like six, seven left. I think he gets checked. Little fingers and classic overconfident. You know, a rational confidence guy and survivor for sure. So just had this to be. And I made the case for Arya and Joe talked me into Tyrion, which I think is probably a pretty good answer.

Especially aligned with the canon of the show where like Tyrion makes it through. Basically everything

he makes needs to make it through. And then at the end says basically in final tribal like inexplicable things and everyone's like sounds good. You know, but I think you're a secretarian as a strong one. Yeah. That's pretty good. I like that. I like that one as well. I would say also Varus because he's got a great story. You know, he's got the personal. You've got to be able to weaponize your personal trauma at some point during the show. Yeah. And who can do that? A

“tactical player strategic tactical player who can do that and win. But I also agree. I think Tyrion is.”

I think Mara and Arya is going to score. Yeah. Really good. It gets a lot of flirt relationships going with multiple cast members who feel like they might have a chance after this. Yeah, show man.

It's a potential show man. Yeah. I think he's working on that. Yeah. He has a Targaryen out there.

They take their torch and they just light people and fire. That's not going to work. You know? Who is the one Brianna Tarth? I think she gets the final five, too. Well, that's a great one too because you have Brianna and I think it's a challenge. Like an alliance. No one really saw a comment. Paul. Patrick would do well. I think Patrick would do well. It will. Yeah. Oh, man. Jamie Brianna as a as an alliance. Kind of like a showman. So will they won't they? That would be

gangbusters. The kind of thing that Jeff could not stop talking about at the finale. But Jamie has to make his source of your brand choice at the end and we're like no, too good. Well, the other thing is they're used to really malotors people from the game terms been the 1300s. There's not a lot of the other impact then. I want to say close for months.

They brought the family. It's always emotional when the family members come out. But this is

later than we usually get to see this. These guys stink like they are right. Yeah, you don't even want to it's it's like a fist bump from a couple feet away. Right. The brothers, the mom and daughter. Okay. But Joe's wife. I could I'm sorry. I'm just going to be honest. I was watching this and I was like if Adam had made it to the final three of season 50 of Survivor. And I was brought out on a boat. I would not lovingly embrace him and tell him just own your game. I would be like,

can you can you like eat a coconut or something? Yeah. Can we? Can we freshen up on it? It's like to really stop. Well, puppy blood. The game probably blows out everyone's nostrils after like six weeks. Oh, yeah, for sure. It could become nose blind. Yeah. Because probe some one point. He hugs three. Yeah. After something and he was like, whoa, he did both of those. You forget like how gaming because it's like what 90 degrees every day. And they're just wearing the same shirt for six

weeks. They used to be a lot dirtier too. I mean, they're filthy now for sure. Yeah. But they used to be so disgustingly dirty that it was absolutely notable, sleeping in rat-filled caves. It's really like coming down from what it used to be on the hygiene front. I miss it. I miss those days. Yeah,

“there must be real reasons for that. All right. We just wanted our. Did we hit everything?”

I think we did. Mm. It's just a sham that's the reading didn't get to win the season. Just say that one more time. Okay. Oh, I'll just I said it on on the pod is spoken and I believe this. I I wish he could have been on a season that was a mix of newcomers and veterans. Much like Boston Rob season, which yeah, no disrespect to Boston Rob, he's an absolute legend in the game legend legend, but it was him and Russell. He got Russell out early and a bunch of newcomers. And then it was just

like target dummies to the one. Mm-hmm. That's legit. But I wish we would have seen Surrey really work her magic against nuclear newcomer players, not just the best of the best. Have they ever done like over 40? The entire cast is over 40 or over 50 and anything like that. Like a senior survivor on us. Golden Bachelor, but for survivor? Golden. Yes. Yes. So different. So different. Like crush. You know. Just do like a little mini season of like 14 people, but then you get Colby.

You get all these people anyway. You don't have to worry about the challenges being as danger. They can also brand it a little more like kindly like something about wisdom, right? You know, the wisdom

casting way too young. Like the bulk of the cast. Now each season is really, they've like two generations of survivors. Yeah. And I think it's like cool when people who have lived a lot of life are out there. So that would be that would be great. I would be with that. Maybe that would be what inspires my wife to finally go on. I've been pushing for a forever. Her new thing. He would do.

She would. She would do amazing. No. Her new thing was like she was like, I just wouldn't be able to

she wouldn't probably three four challenges, but she would also probably kill Jeff because the

“narration of him during the challenges. She would be like, Jeff, you have to fuck up. I'm trying to”

do this. Try to do a puzzle, stop talking. He really doubted up in general this year. I felt like it felt like I don't know. He was locked in, which made the reading and things so funny that he fucked that up. Well, we'll see. We'll see how many people either get fired or murdered after

I'm not supposed to. Yeah. Mallory, when are you going on wait a second? You know, I can't say I'm like

up on all the conspiracy theories. It's going to be like conspiracy. You care about everyone. You've got just dating the door is open. You don't care about scuba divers that the Maldives? You know, I have been served a couple Instagram reels about that. I will say I don't know if it has any connection to survivor in the amount of like beautiful ocean visuals in my Instagram algorithm right now in general, but I'll I'll give it some thought. I'll see what's if the production team of the

live survivors season 50, the special mysteriously disappears? Count me in. I'll be tracking it within a minute. It could be like the with the scientists when the scientists started disappearing

“one at a time. All right. I'm only we have to like eight. I think it's 11 or 12. I think we're up to”

unbelievable. I might have to come on soon because I have a whole NBA thing.

Oh, please. We can do NBA on wait a second. Absolutely. We've sports sports conspiracies or

I have a really hardcore like I might have to get dressed up as conspiracy build the whole thing. Oh, yeah. That's one of those. Yeah, it's one of those. Okay. Well, the end of all the doors open anytime. All right. And we've got the Zodiac killer also waiting for you as well. I know. I just got to do once once we get through the NBA third round. I'm gonna really dive in the Zodiac and we'll be ready. All right.

“You can watch and listen to Mallory and House of Art. You can watch and listen to Jason. Wait a second.”

Great to see you both. It was fun to see you on the same screen. And absolutely delight. Thanks guys. I guess. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mahoney. Thanks to Jason and Mallory. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget to watch Animal House this weekend because that is going to be the next rewatchable on on Monday. Get ready for that one. Enjoy the weekend. I'm going to be live on Netflix. Sunday night after the basketball game, which is going to be

game four spurs thunder. I hope I hope we have enough guys left on each team for an awesome game. Anyway, enjoy the weekend. I'll see you on Sunday night. Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus in president DC can tuck your well. My game problem call 1100 gamble or 1 800 my reset. Call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or mdgambling help.org and Maryland.

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